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Further Education Or Apprenticeships

February 16, 2011 By admin
Apprenticships

Mechanic Apprentaship

You’re preparing for your GCSE’s. You’ve been studying hard and learning to make decisions. Now you have to decide what to do after school. Do you go to college and enrol in your further education, do you go straight into full time employment, or do you sign up for an apprenticeship?

Most teenagers will further their education at college through a variety of courses, the most common being the A-levels. Some will prefer to go into full time employment, but how many know about what else is out there; how many teenagers know what an apprenticeship is?

Over the last 5 years apprenticeships have become more appealing to all age groups since the original transmission by the BBC of The Apprentice. However young people may get the wrong idea about what an apprenticeship is by watching this, as they may think it is about competing to get a job.

An apprenticeship is not about competing to get a job, it is about working for another in order to learn a trade. As an apprentice you are effectively a trainee, so although you are earning whilst learning the skills needed for your chosen trade, you will not be earning as much as a fully qualified individual. Depending on what you choose to train in, depends on how long it will take to be fully qualified, and you have to be 100% dedicated to your training because you will be working for someone else, meaning that you’ll be working when it is convenient for them. 

If you choose to go into further education, there are so many options for you. There are the standard A-levels that a lot of young people get encouraged to do when they leave school, but there is also vocational courses such as learning to become a mechanic. Vocational courses will train you in your chosen field, (e.g. mechanics, air host/hostess, etc.) however you do not get paid and you do not get on-the-job training; if anything you have to pay for your course if you are over 18.

If you merely want to go into further education to gain enough grades and points to get into university, then the best option would be A-levels; if you want to study a skill at university, then a vocational course would best suit you, as you are learning the skills, whilst still gaining the points that universities like you to have. However if you just want to get into the world of work, but be able to learn new skills, then an apprenticeship is for you.

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Apprenticeships vs Further Education

January 20, 2011 By admin
student

student

The thought of completing apprenticeships or traineeships seems now quite an old fashioned idea.  Although it was once a commonplace occurrence, with many business taking on an apprentice to train up through the trade and learn the job from scratch.  This would help to lead to workers with a much deeper understanding of the trade they were working in.

The BBC program “The Apprentice” has brought apprenticeships back into the foreground.  They have become a much more fashionable thing to do and with many more employers willing to take on trainees, it has become much easier for young people to get the training they want.

The apprenticeship does, however, seem to have made a bit of a comeback.  The difference between an apprenticeship and a traineeship is that an apprenticeship will lead you in a trade direction – plumbing, joinery, bricklaying and electrical engineering.  The traineeship takes the student in an office based direction, leading onto entry level qualifications in administration, sales, hospitality and other business related topics.

Apprenticeships and traineeships tend to be more widely available to a variety of people who wish to learn a trade or profession without the hassle or commitment to college, which some people can find hard.  As part of the training schemes the student will get paid a minimum of £2.50 per hour, though as your training progresses you may start to get paid more.

Further education allows a person to get a formal qualification at the end of their course (dependent on the courses chosen) which should allow them to get a job without having to do an apprenticeship.  This means that their earning potential is much higher as soon as they enter the job market, however, they will not necessarily be working while they are doing their course – although many students do.  It can be possible to qualify to a higher level in further education and then go into a job specific training scheme once you have found the track that you wish to take – these generally pay better as they are an advancement of your current qualifications which will benefit the company you are working for.

Filed Under: Apprenticeships, Further Education Tagged With: , , ,