‘We are trying to reproduce a crafts apprenticeship’: from Government Blueprint to workplace‐generated apprenticeship in the knowledge economy

Abstract

Recent research has shown that the UK's Advanced Apprenticeship Programme (AAP) struggles to develop the forms of ‘vocational practice’, that is, a combination of knowledge, skill and judgement, employers are looking for in the creative and cultural sector. Employers' reluctance to get involved with the AAP does not mean that they are uninterested in training. They are concerned that the UK's Department of Education and Skills promotes the AAP to serve ‘educational’ goals (i.e. route for academic progression), rather than functioning as a genuine attempt to develop the sector‐specific vocational knowledge and skill that they feel it is important for apprentices to develop. To understand why many employers distance themselves from the AAP, the paper compares and contrasts the AAP with the ‘Technical Apprenticeship’, which has been developed by Birmingham Repertory Theatre, with regard to the different notions of skill formation, skill transfer and employability. It concludes by raising a number of questions and issues as regards: (1) the future development of apprenticeship in the creative and cultural sector in the UK and internationally, and (2) the concept of vocational practice in Vocational Education and Training.

Notes

1. This definition of vocationality has some affinities with Clarke and Winch's (2006, pp. 259–260) recent discussion of the ‘epistemology of skill’, which also acknowledges the crucial role of judgement.

2. By judgement we interpret the Rep to mean the ability to recognise situations, cases or problems, rather than attempting to impose the procrustean application of a general rule (Guile, forthcoming a).