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P Browning
Member - 9 posts
Here we go again, this is yet another half-hearted attempt to put things right, but surely the first step is to restore the original concept of Indentured Apprenticeships. Just to remind those who were not around at the time, this was always by formal Deed of Indenture so that both the Apprentice (together with his/her parents or guardian) and the Employer were each legally bound in mutual obligation.
In these "olden days", we were able to trawl the local schools for recruits, clearly stating what was on offer, and the clear nature of the commitment required on both sides of the package. Each year, once identified, the new batch of recruits and their parents/guardians were invited to a formal 'induction evening' where, after an introductory presentation and with due ceremony, the Indenture Deeds were formally signed and exchanged between the parties. At the end of four years, the Apprentice was released from his or her obligation, having gained the real value of formal qualifications obtained 'on the job' and by day-release to College, which would be recognised throughout the industry. But then, those were the 'olden days', before everyone got their rights and everyone lost their obligations. The sad thing is that these formal Indentured Apprentice programmes really, really worked, and worked very well indeed. I know, because I was there, for forty years ! Hi Mr. Denham, are you listening ?
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John Robertson
Member - 18 posts
I'm a potential employer now, on a tiny scale.
I saw on the telly a government minister saying that apprenticeships had failed in London, where most people work for small employers and daft quangos like "ConneXions" (sic) have trouble recruiting staff themselves.
I tried to Google what the word Apprentice now means and in London it's impossible to find out. There seems to be a re-named youth service willing to advise employers and young people how to arrange mixtures of low-paid work and work-related study, including council-funded study. I only found this out from ConneXions-SIC offices in other parts of the UK: the London one just has a form on which you are meant to ask them for information, implying that you know pretty much what to ask. It also says that a software fault means that the form may harm your computer.
This is an interesting thread though. I live somewhere where various loft conversion gangs, plumbers and trades have been in over the last few years, some of them Polish or Russian; some of them people who hates school and need a bit of coaxing to go to college and learn plastering or tiling or plumbing or even something creative. It would be great if anyone knows the answer, and greater still if they could tell the minister.
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