Despite the repeated declarations of support, and the commitment to meet a target of three million apprenticeships by 2020, the UK is lagging behind many of its competitors when it comes to the number of young people entering vocational training schemes.
The OECD, the world’s leading economic research group, has issued research that shows that just 2% of young people are in apprenticeships in the UK – compared with 9% in Denmark and 15% in Germany.
The report says that while apprenticeships are a “useful way of bridging the gap between school and employment for youth”, participation levels remain low in the UK, currently less than 2%, compared to more than 9% in Denmark and 15% in Germany.
‘Skills deteriorating between generations’
“Increasing apprenticeship rates would help more practically-minded students into the workforce,” the report says, adding that the UK is one of the few countries “in which literacy and numeracy skills have deteriorated between the older and younger generation”, it adds.
The apprenticeship figures sit alongside the UK’s concerning NEET figures. A country’s NEET rate measures the proportion of young people who are not in education, employment or training, and while the UK’s NEET rate is a touch below average, it still lags significantly behind best-performing nations, such as Germany. “Furthermore, close to two-thirds of this Neet group are inactive i.e. not even looking for a job”, the report adds.
