Learning from the past?

The benefits of apprenticeships have long been understood. The ability to train on the job, teach industry-specific skills, establish employee loyalty and sustain youth development – all have been tied up in one apprenticeship bundle since the Middle Ages. By the sixteenth century, it is estimated that around 10 per cent of the population of London were apprentices.

After reaching that peak, numbers slowly declined. However, since all but dying a death in the 1980s, apprenticeships were reborn in the UK as Modern Apprenticeships under John Major’s government in 1994, and were further embraced by New Labour in 1997. Official statistics show that the number of those on modern apprenticeship schemes (rebranded again as apprenticeships and advanced apprenticeships in 2004) rose from around 75,000 in 1997 to around 250,000 in 2005.