Sir, – Against the backdrop of recent reports in your newspaper about the funding shortages faced by the third-level education sector and the agreement by the Higher Education Authority on rules for the future establishment of technological universities (Education, Today, February 7th), it is of interest to note that about 60 per cent of young people in the EU’s strongest economy, Germany, do not aspire to follow an academic third-level education. Instead they go through a high-quality, company-based professional education programme in the form of an apprenticeship. The German government considers this the best way to develop the required professional knowledge and skills of the majority of its citizens.
The German apprenticeship programme is largely paid for by the companies involved. An apprenticeship contract is an employment contract with a focus on learning and development. Thus, an apprentice is a young worker and not a student. Complementary “off-the-job” learning is funded by the state and takes place in educational establishments. The whole programme is governed jointly by a board comprising employer and employee organisations, a chamber of commerce and the educational authorities.
Universities and other third-level bodies play a major role in the training of work-place teachers, as well as providing research back-up in areas such as curriculum updating, setting standards, work-based teaching methods and evaluation. Although there are negative critiques of some areas, overall the quality of the apprenticeship programme is reckoned to be very good. Completion rates are very high and employers are happy that they are getting value for money.
Switzerland, another country with a strong economy, pursues a similar programme to Germany, but has an even greater throughput, with 70 per cent of its young people in any one year beginning an apprenticeship programme. Swiss firms say they achieve a balance between training costs and the increased productive capacity of apprentices in their final year.
In the English-speaking world, Australia is gaining attention for massively increasing its apprenticeship programme in recent years. Its programme includes a more flexible traineeship version. Proportionately, Australia has as many apprentices as Germany, but it differs in that half of its participants are over 25. Around a third of these are existing workers, while the remainder include people who have dropped out of third-level courses or are graduates who lack the professional skills needed in the labour market.
In the Celtic Tiger years, Ireland had a vibrant apprenticeship programme, proportionately about a quarter the size of the German programme. Although highly respected internationally in terms of its governance and operational structures and links with the formal education system (features not too dissimilar to the German model outlined above), the overly heavy focus on occupations in the construction sector, along with inflated and unsustainable Celtic Tiger pay rates, have led to a massive decline today.
However, in implementing an educational strategy to renew our society and economy today, we have the successful achievements in the field of apprenticeships to build on in devising more modern apprenticeships to address the professional education requirements of many of our younger citizens. Perhaps today is also the time to consider the respective merits of learning based on academic criteria (such as having a university degree) against learning real-life expertise, acquired with or from expert practitioners in the world of work. – Yours, etc,