A new report from The Student Room has revealed that the perception and awareness problem surrounding apprenticeships still persists among young people. The annual survey of young people’s hopes, fears and ambitions over their educational futures shows that just 6% of respondents who were still in school or college were very interested in taking an apprenticeship, compared to 62% who said they weren’t interested at all.
According the report, “This may indicate a lack of awareness of the apprenticeship option which could be attributed to the fact that 40% felt they were given very little information about apprenticeships. Only 11% felt they were “fully informed”.
Reasons to be cheerful
However, for those young people who are interested in apprenticeships, the motivation varies. The top three reasons for taking an apprenticeship were to improve long-term career prospects (65%), earn money (48%) or because of an interest in their chosen job (47%). “Interestingly, despite the assumption that most apprenticeships are taken by men, the rate of interest in them varied little between the sexes.”
Chris Newsom, CEO of the Student Room, said that changing perceptions of non-academic routes is a key issue for educators and politicians. “A key theme of 2016 is the growing awareness of university alternatives, such as apprenticeships.
“Apprenticeships are not the poor relation of a degree and increasingly students are realising that they can study alongside their work and come away with the equivalent of a bachelor’s or even a master’s degree whilst gaining valuable work skills at the same time. In addition, they avoid the cost of university by following this route.”
