Change and continuity in apprenticeship: the resilience of a model of learning

Abstract

This paper explores the changes and continuities to apprenticeship in England since the 1960s. It argues that apprenticeship is primarily a model of learning that still has relevance for skill formation, personal development and employer need. It also argues that, since the late 1970s and the introduction of state‐sponsored youth training, apprenticeship has been transformed into an instrument of State policy, primarily for the control of young people and as part of new legislation to keep them in some form of education or training to the age of 18. In that sense, the holistic notion that apprenticeship had in the past as being a journey within which young people learned to be morally upright citizens as well as acquiring occupational expertise, is being reinvented. Now, however, the State's dominant role has profound implications for the role of employers in apprenticeship and the extent to which skill formation is being underplayed.

Keywords:

• apprenticeship
• skill formation
• learning journey
• State policy and control

Notes

1. Whilst devolution has enabled Scotland Wales and Northern Ireland to develop different approaches to VET from those followed in England, the characteristics of apprenticeship and the implications for youth transition as discussed in this paper remain broadly the same across the UK.

2. At present, the Apprenticeships, Skills, Children and Learning Bill 2008–09 is being debated in parliament and, if passed, will place apprenticeship on a statutory footing again for the first time since 1814.