As readers of my Blog and Tweets will have no doubt sussed by now, I am a great fan of Apprenticeships as an instrument to improve social mobility in the UK and improve the life chances of young people, particlularly.
However, you will also know that im not a great fan of the current trend to promote Apprenticeships to the point of meaningless; we've seen with the down grading of degrees over time the adverse affect this can have on graduate employment - too many graduates in the labour market may have upskilled the UK but ask the graduates whether they are happy with their current chances of finding employment.
So, I was delighted to see the latest B&Q Tv ads where the emphasis was on the skilled workforce - in terms of City&Guilds qualified teams in store. Did they mention the term 'Apprenticeship'? No. I wonder why?
Because, like most of us who haven't got all loved-up on the hype around Apprenticeship place targets, that business needed to connect with its TV audience, it could have easily cashed in on apprenticeship association but it chose a different route, one that it thought would have greater relevance.
This should be an early warning for the Govt and the National Apprenticeship Service - are you hell-bent on replicating the graduate unemployment model by repeating the exercise in Vocational Training with Apprenticeships?
Graduate? Apprentice? They just don't mean what they used too - better stick to the actual qualification for clarity in future, its the more realisitic barometer of learning quality in my opinion.
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