VET
Learning in order to earn
The certainty and simplicity of the old apprenticeship model has become a tangled mess. By Stuart Middleton
It was easy once. Young people wanting to learn a trade would typically leave school( often as soon as they were allowed) would go into a job on low pay, sit next to Alice or Charley and“ learn the ropes”. If things went well, they might be offered an apprenticeship.
An apprenticeship was not an entangled mess of administrative compliance, visitations and assessments at every hammer blow as is the case now but more the genuine apprentice / master relationship. You learned the skills by doing.
Apprentices would then at an appropriate point go to TAFE and be taught some of the theory but not too much and, usually, communications English which was good for you regardless of whether or not you needed it.
I remember teaching a class in the early 1970s and everyone had to write a report on the ripsnorter saw. Even I did not know what a ripsnorter saw was, because that was not the point of the exercise – the exercise was about using slightly formal English, punctuation and the structure of the report. Most dutifully produced a report and passed.
So, why has it all become so fiendishly complex? Partly it’ s because the tolerance that workers and employers had for young workers has worn thin if not disappeared.
Nowadays the expectation is that the apprentice will emerge as a fully-formed tradesperson. Performance has replaced potential as a reason for taking someone on. And the institutionalisation of trades training meant that increasingly earn and learn became more difficult.
38 | April 2013
That is why it was refreshing for me to visit one Orlando, Florida senior secondary school that saw it all differently.
The structure of the program was simple. For two days a week, half the school went out to work, while the other half undertook study towards their General Education Diploma. On another two days, they swapped – the other half went to work and the other half studied. On one day of the week, they’ re all at school.
Their employment was managed by a supportive group of about 120 employers; many took two students thus holding open a position within their operation for the students. They received pay for their work and this was a key to keeping them in school. The link between the work and the school lessons was not close; such was the variety of work other than at the level of good employment skills and behaviour. The student group was 17-20 years of age, predominantly students of colour, from what were described to me as the“ poor homes of Orlando”. But their engagement was high.
I spent a very pleasant hour with one Grade 12 group. They knew where they were going, and why they were studying. There was little disengagement here, and a great majority of them moved smoothly into employment after completing Grade 12.
In the space of the hour I spent with them, over a thousand students dropped out of high school in the USA. That’ s 7000 every school day, over a million each school year who drop out of school in the USA. Many of the students I had seen would have been among them but for this solution, which is elegant in its simplicity, and stunning in its results.
“ Learn and earn” seems such a simple way to move forward. Out of that approach grows the opportunity for an employer to“ try before you buy.”
Squeals of protest will arise at that idea, but the notion of a probationary period is sound, especially when it occurs in a setting that does not carry with it the risk of hopelessness when things don’ t work out. That’ s why it is essential for educational institutions to mix work with learning, especially for students who are headed towards the trades.
Institutions are inflexible places; they demand that time be served, and they insist that high levels of training require much sitting down and listening. Young people need energy to be part of that mix, with real responsibility and a sense that there is an adult world toward which they are moving with dignity.
Those headed towards university are encouraged in this regard – the others need to have the same care.
Economies are demanding high levels of skills and not all at the level of a degree. Trades qualifications and middle level exit points will be critical if countries are to reach their targets.
Another snippet I learned in the USA was the fact that student debt is now the largest debt category, moving past credit cards and car loans. It is now more than $ USD1 trillion. Stories abound of students who have debts of $ US100,000, but who cannot hope to land a first job paying more than $ US30,000 – it’ s a hopeless situation.
Learning in order to earn, and learning and earning, might well become things of the past. But not if the efforts of the Workforce Advantage Academy in Orlando, Florida continue. n