Does apprenticeship still have meaning in the UK? The consequences of voluntarism and sectoral change

This chapter provides an overview of the development of apprenticeships in the UK, exploring the extent to which contemporary apprenticeships resemble their historical predecessors and whether they have relevance for young people and employers today. The chapter is presented in four sections: the first section gives a historical overview of apprenticeships in the UK; the second section shows how the current system differs from the past in terms of apprentice characteristics and the sectors in which apprenticeships are available; in section three, some of the issues and problems emerging from the Mature Apprenticeship (MA) program are identified and case studies from the engineering and banking sectors are used to show the types of provision that currently count as apprenticeship; and the final section highlights a number of challenges for policy makers and concludes that the flexible and weakly regulated model of apprenticeship that has emerged in the UK has resulted in great variations in the quality of provision.