The ￡100K conundrum that our young people face...

Our young people these days have many more choices than previous generations as to the direction they take after completing secondary schooling. With all the choices and options available these do present significant challenges to someone in there teenage years who are faced with deciding on the right path to follow next. This is made even more difficult if they don't get the level of parental guidance and support that they should.

With the requirement that all children must now stay in some form of education or training until they are 18, the options on what they can do are vast, but the path they choose is essentially either A levels and University or a more vocational route via a college and / or apprenticeship.

You can analyse both options in a number of ways, but unfortunately in the capitalist society we live in it comes down to pounds, shillings, and pence. Some will argue that the A level & University route, whilst being much more expensive initially, is a better path to greater levels of social mobility. For certain professions you can't disagree with that but for a significant number of job roles the vocational path is such a compelling way forward for both the employer and youg person.

In our business we recruit a significant amount of apprentices, not only do they learn how to become a professional engineer, they get a great understanding of how our business works, they have to quickly become accustomed to how the 'world of work' is and the expectations of a business. To top it all, they also get paid for all of this learning and experience. The business gets the benefit of an employee who, after 4 to 5 years, is skilled, understands the expectations and by the fifth year of the apprenticeship, is making a good contribution within the business.

Putting this into a moneytary value for an individual is quite simple, the combination of debt you would be lumbered with taking A levels and University Degree compared to the wages an apprentice will earn over the same five year period has the nett effect of the apprentice being ￡100,000 better off at 21 years old than a university graduate.

Given this, it's a conundrum to me why apprenticeships are not more widely taken up, despite a huge amount of work that a number of people do in the organisation to promote apprenticeships, we continue to struggle to get sufficient applicants of the calibre we need.  For the last 3 years we've not been able to fill all the places we have to offer.

Maybe it's that schools are not promoting apprenticeships enough, maybe young people haven't been well enough informed of the potential an apprenticeship can lead to, maybe an engineering apprenticeship isn't sexy enough? I'm sure there is no magic bullet, it's a combination of these and a number of other things.

One thing is certain, given the choice again, I would pick an apprenticeship every time, being financially much better off, work wise, and work ready.  Most employers who have ambitious apprentices will offer further development including degree opportunities after the initial apprentice training has been completed. More often than not, the employer will fund it so you don't get lumbered with the debt and get a guaranteed job afterwards.