If you have tried to book a repair job or a service for your car or your central heating boiler you are likely to have to wait weeks if not months. I got given a date in December for the boiler repair and another six weeks ahead with my regular garage to have the car serviced. The reason for the waits: there aren’t enough skilled tradesmen or women with more needed to take up apprenticeships.
In the construction industry alone, 50,000 apprentices will be needed between now and 2030. Skill shortages are one of the major bottlenecks in efforts to meet targets in the current housing crisis. Little wonder then, we are hearing more about the need to encourage young people to look at the apprenticeship route to a career.
Last week the spotlight was on the learning and earning route when the Apprentice of the Year Awards took place in the Mansion House.
In recent decades though, there has been a bias in favour of third level education with more than 250,000 students in third level, with two thirds of those at university. Maybe it’s time for the pendulum to swing in favour of craft with a work-based path to a career as opposed to campus and academic learning.
Many families will be weighing up the pros and cons of the different systems for the future, especially in the light of the cost of a university education, where it’s not only the €3,000 student contribution but the cost of accommodation likely to be around €1,000 to €1,400 a month plus the cost of living.
Against that, apprentices don’t pay for tuition and can begin earning from the word go, albeit at a rate below the minimum wage initially but in several years they will be earning a decent wage in a craft job (anywhere between €46,000 to €70,000 depending on trade and experience) or they could start their own business.
Universities may offer academic learning, social fun and time to enjoy life before knuckling down to a career but, against that, graduates may be saddled with repaying loans and beginning a job search after three or four years with little work experience.
Universities are strengthening their links with business though, and most now offer some form of job experience, most graduates between 75-80% get jobs within nine months.
The Kilkenny and Carlow Education and Training Board (KCETB) is a good barometer for apprenticeships.
They offer 8,000 learners- apprentices and other students a wide range of funded full and part-time courses through their Further Education and Training Programmes (FET) from sustainability and environment to tattooing.
Celebrations are in order with Kilkenny student Joanne Leahy named Apprentice of the Year in the Hospitality Food & Agriculture category of the awards run by Generation Apprentice. Joanne, who is passionate about food is a Commis Chef Apprentice with Lenehans Bar in Kilkenny.
With more 300 apprentices nominated for the award contest, now in its fourth year, Joanne was one of 12 category winners.
Some skills have traditionally been male-dominated but KCETB report an uptake of interest among young women. There is now one female apprentice among the 11 taking the Introduction To Thatching course run in conjunction with the Heritage Council. The course has attracted a lot of interest not only from school leavers but from mature students turning their back on the corporate world in favour of the satisfaction of working in a traditional craft.
Aside from traditional skills, the board have just launched an Accounting Technician Apprenticeship with Accounting Technicians Ireland which can provide a route into the profession. The course which runs over two years has attracted young women among the 17 participants who earn as they learn with Kilkenny companies while spending a day a week at the Carlow Institute.
The number of apprentices in Ireland has grown exponentially, up from only 7,000 a decade ago and there are now 78 different apprenticeship courses with more disciplines offering a route to a degree and in some cases up to PhD level.
The National Survey of Apprenticeships last year found that 94% thought that their apprenticeship would offer good job opportunities so the system must be doing something right.
And the learn and earn route is well worth considering!
