Apprenticeships are gaining recognition for skills development but in some countries they still face stigmas and other challenges, the WorldSkills Conference 2021 has been told.
Alliances or partnerships are needed to play a key role in the successful delivery of apprenticeships, including the collective and proactive efforts of stakeholders such as employers, training providers, unions and governments, speakers said.
Apprenticeships had for too long been ignored in favor of university education, said Megan Yeates, winner for freight forwarding at WorldSkills Kazan 2019.
"The most you are ever going to learn is going to be in the real world," the Irish woman said. "I remember the shocking reality I got coming from school and learning everything it said in the textbooks, and then going out to work and realizing it never goes by the book."
"In the United Kingdom, apprenticeships have long been recognized as the best way to learn," said Paul Warner of the British Association of Employment and Learning Providers.
"If you were to ask yourself, where have I learned the most about how to do my job, all of us must be honest to say it wasn't sitting in a classroom learning about theory. It was about doing."
Norbert Schoebel, team leader of the European Commission's Skills for the Young, VET, Apprenticeships and Adult Learning Unit, said the EU has a huge variety of networks, coalitions, or alliances at all levels.
He said that it established the European Alliance for Apprenticeship in 2013 when youth unemployment in some countries in southern parts of Europe was 40 to 50 percent.
"Since we knew that an apprenticeship is a very successful tool in the transition from school to work, we created this alliance at that time," he said. "We have many objectives in supply, quality, images and mobility."
He said the alliance is still growing and its members come from 36 countries and 360 individual organizations.
Last year, the EU renewed the alliance under the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic to get members to work more closely with each other.
"We once a year bring all these local, regional, and national partnerships together to see and to learn from each other," he said.
"The partnership approach is a key principle, involving all key partners in a fair and executive partnership with inclusive, structured and transparent dialogue."
But things are different in poorer countries.
Ashwani Aggarwal, team leader of the International Labor Organization's Work Group, shared a story about the president of a country asking for advice on reforming its skills education system.
It was a poor country that invested huge amounts of money from multi-billion dollar Development Bank loans to improve its school system, but the skills problem remained unsolved, said Aggarwal, adding that economic growth was hampered and so was job creation.
He said the problem was that the country thought the first thing was to improve its facilities and infrastructure. But the world was changing so fast that the equipment they invested in quickly became out-of-date, some times even before completion of the project.
"The bigger problem is that similar situations exist in many countries," he said.
Experts and policymakers in the country later realized a good option was apprenticeships, a centuries-old tradition and a training model which puts the world of work and the world of money together.
Aggarwal pointed out that modern apprenticeship systems are adopting a new direction. They are not only training people for traditional jobs, but also for emerging sectors such as the digital and green economies as well as the services sector.
Even universities in some countries have started offering apprenticeship programs. Apprenticeships are no longer confined to employment training for the youth, but older people are also using them for skills acquisition.
"No doubt apprenticeships are an effective and efficient form of learning, yet many countries find it difficult to sustain their skills education system," he said. "Establishing effective partnerships and synergies between stakeholders is the most challenging. But it is possible."
He said in many countries, apprenticeships still carry a stigma, many students do not want to join in and also a large proportion of enterprises do not have apprentice training systems.
"The basic thing is that if apprenticeship planning is taking place, both apprentices and employers have to legally participate, he said.
He said 187 members of the ILO have asked the organization to develop new standards to ensure that the quality and inclusiveness of apprenticeship programs provide benefits and protection to both apprentices and enterprises and enhance attractiveness.
In June next year, the member countries will together formulate a new standard with related discussions in the ensuing two years.
"We encourage dialogue because it's a joint effort, not only that some groups of people can work together, but also to develop the best standards and practices," he said.