CR5 Issue 143 April 2017

Cécile Bradwell proposed the Society’s March
debate: ‘Most children stay too long at school and
too few enrol in apprenticeships’. Cécile noted
the Government aims to have 3 million people
enrolled as apprentices by the end of 2020.
Apprenticeships provide training for new and
current employees (from age 16) – for example,
City and Guilds training consists of a paid job with
a professional qualification at the end.
Apprenticeships range from business
administration, law, retail and commercial,
engineering and manufacturing as well as health,
public services and care. Cécile then examined our
current education and training systems, starting
with 1. School: There is still too much academic
rather than vocational bias. Cécile said that
teachers often find it difficult to maintain
discipline, as children struggle with too much
deskwork. A shorter, more concrete, grounding in
maths, English and science would provide
businesses with more literate and numerate
employees. From School Year 10 (aged 14)
business studies, information technology,
economics should give young people an
introduction to the commercial world; local
businesses should help to extend the current 2 to
4 weeks’ Work Experience for Year 10-11 pupils.
Schools’ ill-informed and patchy career advice
should be boosted by a UCAS-style system to
promote apprenticeships.
2. University: Recent Government policy
encouraged children to stay on at school till aged
18 and then attend university/college. The swing
to the ‘freedom’ of higher education leads to a
high university drop-out rate. Many teenagers are
discouraged by college fees that leave them with
huge debts – with no guarantee of a prestige job.
A City and Guilds’ poll found that 59% of
vocational trainees are more likely to be employed
- against 44% of graduates.
3. Government reforms: Despite the influx of
skilled Eastern European immigrants, 87% of
senior employers from 500 UK companies said
they had recruitment difficulties. There will be
new standards, a new employers’ levy to raise a £3
million apprenticeships’ fund and the Government
has also announced that 200,000 public sector
apprentices will be recruited. Cécile said that we
need skilled roofers and hair-dressers just as much
as good solicitors. The tide is turning: many
apprentices ultimately earn more than graduates
and recently, 66% of GCSE students say
apprenticeships offer greater career progression.
But only 1 in 5 say their school helps them to
pursue apprenticeship options.
Opposer Pauline Payne opened with her husband
Ian’s old school motto: ‘Enrich the time to come’ -
a noble aspiration for any child. She also said that
education should not be a means to an end, but a
means of giving children the best chances in life.
So, should we encourage less academic teenagers
to think of apprenticeships as a superior
replacement for higher education?
No, because today’s globally-competitive
workplace demands a well-educated workforce.
Also, apprenticeships no longer guarantee a safe
job, as people live for much longer and can often
change employment. Pauline cautioned against
the ‘panacea’ of apprenticeships; they vary from a
5-year, £17,000 p.a. legal training as a solicitor to a
3-month apprenticeship in a supermarket, with no
qualification and no job; moreover, there seems to
be no independent monitoring to stop employers
using apprentices as cheap and easily replaceable
labour - not surprisingly, 30% of apprentices said
they felt disillusioned and let down by
employers. Teenagers may not realise that, unlike
higher education, apprenticeships provide specific
training and while some are equivalent to degree
courses, they do not offer the versatility of good
GCSEs, A-levels or degrees that allow students a
wide choice of career, with time to decide what
that may be. ‘Earning while learning’ said Pauline,
usually amounts to little more than pin money,
but may nonetheless lure promising students
away from completing important education. We
must not think that higher education is wasted on
most of our children. This flies in the face of the
fast-growing knowledge economy in
pharmaceuticals, nuclear energy, IT, and the media
– recognised in the Government’s plans for more
formal technical college courses and the
re-introduction of Grammar Schools.
A nation’s workforce must be able to use their
heads as well as their hands. Pauline concluded
that while children need more technical colleges,
more vocational subjects, more NVQs and work
experience, they should not feel obliged to leave
to pursue more practical training. Finally, our
schools should make sure that a good all-round
education provides a firm basis to take up a
genuine apprenticeship – one that offers a proper
qualification and good prospects.
The motion was won by 7 votes to 4, with 1
abstention. Our Visitors’ Debate, postponed from
January 5th., will take place on April 5th., at the
Old Coulsdon Centre at 8 p.m., when Chris Philp
MP will propose ‘This House is optimistic about
our prospects after leaving the EU’ and Councillor
Andrew Pelling will oppose.
All visitors welcome; for further
details, contact Angela Applin
on 020 8668 8558.
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