By Youth Ambassador Michael Tran
With a Government target of ensuring up to three million apprentice starts, we need to ensure that the quality of training providers remain consistently high throughout each scheme.
Successful anecdotes of apprentices achieving their ambitions, striking gold, and climbing the ladder were once uncommon. Marketed in pamphlets as the true “alternative” to studying at university, we need to ask ourselves if educating our pupils in a practical, working environment opens up the same options and choices as a degree. Who decided it was wrong listening to the lecturer?
With the concept of vocational training becoming increasingly popular, chasing an accountancy career is probably the easiest, fastest and most secure way for a school leaver to earn a salary. Furthermore, without a degree you’re eligible for apprenticeships that involve qualifications such as the AAT – something a graduate must normally pay for, having already incurred a large sum of debt from their degree. Even the recent UK Graduate Employment Survey by the Accenture Strategy stated 60% of graduates from 2013/14 believed their current job did not even require a degree, with 55% working in their chosen field.
When I started in retail sales, apprenticeships provided an excellent form of foundation training, which directly led to employment. It covered soft skills and focused on example-led training. In the post-recession period this was extremely useful, because you obtained full time employment, full salary, and the opportunity to develop your professional qualifications.
Well-known companies such as KPMG, PwC, and National Grid continue to promote high quality apprenticeships, and produce high quality individuals who prove apprenticeships are not just for people who are GCSE and A-level drop-outs. Capegemini have now even renamed their Higher Apprenticeship program to a Degree Apprenticeship Program, and it’s even endorsed by a university.
However the post-recession period is now over, and a recent report by Adzuna claims graduates can earn £12,000 more a year, and a recent Aldi graduate advert even boasted that successful candidates on its graduate fast-track scheme can earn more than £40,000, after a few years’ service and is even given a company car.
The TUC have also claimed jobs in London have been growing twice as fast as the rest of the UK from 2010 to 2014, which can be linked to the increase in demand of graduates. Is the skill market changing again during the recovery?
Five positions, four tutors, three apprenticeships and two training providers later, my decision to avoid university has always come under fire from my friends and families.
I have witnessed apprentices finish their course and then leave their company. Mostly to do a degree. Now I identify two problems here, staff count turnover and an apprentice deciding to enroll on a degree. The latter is more relevant in this case as the individual could have just as easily enrolled onto a sandwich degree, and completed a year’s experience on the same pay and job description as an apprentice. It rings alarm bells for poor time management and future up-skilling decisions. Money invested in apprenticeships should be going back into the working environment, rather than a university degree, because its businesses who are also responsible for the local workforce.
But then you have to ask yourself – was it a glass ceiling they came across? It occurred to me that a majority of companies still hold some posts exclusively for graduates. Similarly, they will advertise that the candidate must possess a degree in a certain subject. What’s wrong with A-levels and equivalent in a certain subject? You can always relax the requirements and start advertising higher apprenticeship programs.
Higher Apprenticeship and Degree-level programs – in my view – the best answer to any apprentice’s glass ceilings. Companies will no doubt view these in good light as they are true alternatives to university – but opportunities such as these and the ongoing trailblazers must be advertised more. The plans are great, but it’s not going to work if you nobody knows about it.
My personal view on degrees and apprenticeships is that they both have their own advantages and disadvantages when it comes to building a career. An apprenticeship will make it easier for you to gain paid experience and make it easier for you to climb up. Graduates have a three-year handicap on full-time experience, and are faced with more competition, but are rewarded well with opportunities once they pass that first hurdle.
More work needs to be done on detaching the unconscious rumor that apprentices are for practical people, and graduates are for academics. You may even argue that studying for a degree teaches you to justify arguments and create plans, and apprenticeships teaches you to think on your toes, developing on your reactive skills. If it’s for any consolation, I have never regretted taking the apprenticeship route. I’ve applied and got accepted into university twice and pulled out on both separate occasions due to a change in career plan.
You can always defer university and take on an apprenticeship at a later stage in life, but let’s get these higher apprenticeship degree programs rolling, and finally; let’s make sure employers create clear career development programs for progression after their challenge after education….
