It seems the recent article on apprenticeships stuck a chord (or a nerve) with some readers. It’s always good to get feedback on one’s articles. Whether you agree with the responses or not, debate is a healthy thing.

Learning from the past? aimed to take the temperature of the modern (with a lower-case ‘m’) apprenticeship. Some references to its centuries-old existence aside, this was not a definitive history of the apprenticeship – rather it intended to focus on where we are now, and where will we be, in light of the wider skills concerns we currently face.

One reader rightly wrote in to highlight the influence that the Carr Report (1958) and the Industrial Training Act (1964) had on the apprenticeship framework we see today (alas, I had to leave out such background in order to fit in the numerous contemporary issues that abound).

Another reader, proposing the argument that apprenticeships are far removed from those of the past (a point also raised in the article, anecdotally, by John Lucas of the British Chambers of Commerce), wrote: “Historically, particularly before the industrial revolution, an apprenticeship serviced to fit a young person into society, give them a job for life, a feeling of belonging and a sense of responsibility”. One would be hard pushed to argue with that. However, these qualities still remain an integral part of an apprenticeship. They did not die with the steam engine, rather they adapted to changing times and (to stretch this “take the train” metaphor) became quicker, more expensive and relatively unloved.

It’s the negative views of modern apprenticeships, and such beliefs that traditional positives are extinct, that need changing. The same reader asked how employee loyalty could be expected when “there is a good chance an employee will be given a short-term contract and little or no retirement provision?” The simple answer is that, in offering an apprenticeship, rather than some internal induction scheme and a few days’ training (or worse, no formal training at all), the employer is actively and obviously investing in that person. Put even more simply, that employer cares about that individual more than the others do. And so follows loyalty – at least, according to the HR staff I talked to. Perhaps not the very same “employer for life” loyalty often harked back to with misty-eyed nostalgia; but people follow portfolio careers far more than they used to. If you employ someone for ten years or more, you’ve done extremely well on the employee engagement or “loyalty” stakes – and investing in apprenticeships improves your chances of being such an employer.

The modern apprenticeship, as the article discussed, continues to have its problems. But while the issue of national skills shortages is, on a macro scale, hard to fathom, it is a problem we have right here, right now, in the twenty-first century. And it’s the apprenticeship that offers a viable solution to a significant part, if not all, of the problem.