The truth is simply it is more about the person rather than the qualifications, if the person wants to learn then they will always be asking questions to absorb as much knowledge as possible, however for industry to recognise the person requires a qualification, the qualification will/should give the person the underpinning knowledge required, so a person wanting to learn will glean much, a person who wants an ‘easy’ life will glean little.
The big failure is not ‘apprenticed trained’ v ‘qualification route’ it’s a combination of quality training attached to a quality person.
The failure is magnified by the ‘quick buck’ training providers offering much meaningless qualification in a short period of time.
It is not to say that a part time course over 3years can’t be compressed to a short full time course, it can, but the quality and absorption rates are greatly impacted as the student doesn’t have time to digest what they have learnt before they are piled with more information. There is also no time for them to gain any meaning full work experience to coincide with the study, thus developing the learning.
Therefore I would always direct a new applicant towards the college courses as opposed to the short time courses. I don’t care how old you are, you want to learn and more importantly understand why your bad habits you’ve accumulated over the years are wrong then do the long course and learn properly.
Sadly with the attitudes of younger generations wanting everything ‘ today’ I can only see the training scenarios getting worse.
Over the years I've had a few apprentices and they have all ended up as very good sparks and for one reason, they WANTED to be sparks! I was 'given' several young lads to train at various companies not all of them made is, one didn't even last a day, in one firm we'd have them on rotation to ensure they got a rounded learning, that was an eye opener for me, I was doing a periodic, as they were known back then and had this lad with me in his 3rd year, last year he'd been with 'Dave', who had taught him some really bad habits, when asked to remove a switch to check it he replied we didn't need to as 'Dave' had checked it last year (this building had an annual inspection) it soon became apparent that 'Dave' did as little as possible, jesus this lad couldn't even thread conduit properly!
I,ve seen some people use apprentices for brushing up, brewing up and going to the shops, but not actually shown them much of the actual job. My favourite trick was to show the lad how to do something and then sit back with a fag and a can of Coke and watch him do the next one, it usually worked. I firmly believe though that you have to WANT to do the job, not just our job but any job, and you have to be temperamentally suited to it, I remember my woodwork teacher at school, "you'll never make a joiner as long as you've got a hole in your arse" I was useless with wood, but I wasn't interested in joinery anyway.
I also find the discrimination thing stupid, like you can't really pick your own apprentice. At the last firm I worked I was the only spark and travelled all over the UK, I very rarely went into the office, I ran from home, anyway they decided we should have an apprentice to make my job easier. I was told that it was up to me to find one from a college near me as it would be easier to pick them up when we were working in say London or Glasgow.
I looked around and a lot of the modern kids are terrible, they see working away as some kind of holiday and want to be down the pub each night or are constantly messaging their mates. So I had an idea, I'd get myself a girl, I'd worked with a few female sparks over the years and they'd always seemed consciencious and paid attention to detail, plus we're always being told that not enough girls get the chance of an apprenticeship.
So here I was, it was an industrial environment with lots of variety and the company were prepared to pay decent money to the right person, what could possibly be wrong with that? well I''ll tell you, after approaching the local tech colleges I was told that I couldn't ask for a girl, it was sexist! After a look at some of what was on offer I decided not to bother,I'd rather struggle on alone than carry passengers who were only doing it because they thought they'd earn megabucks!
