Apprenticeships: Earn While You Learn

Speech to ACT Upper South Regional Conference; The George Hotel, 50 Park Tce, Christchurch; Saturday October 2, 2004.

In the early 1990s the National Government made two major mistakes. The first was Jim Bolger’s sacking of Finance Minister Ruth Richardson.  The second was Education Minister Lockwood Smith’s near destruction of the apprenticeship system.

Dr Lockwood, who promised to rein in the education bureaucrats, was instead seduced by them.  The illegitimate offspring of that union became known as “seamless education”.  Rather than complete a three to five-year apprenticeship, people could instead train over an indefinite period of time, accumulating unit standards which would lead to more flexible qualifications and “prove” competence over a range of areas.

This “seamless” system was backed by a student loan scheme that financed trainees into virtually any programme that could gain New Zealand Qualifications Authority approval.  This approach had four major flaws.

Firstly, it created a huge and expensive bureaucracy that financially drained trainees and mentally exhausted employers.  Secondly, it weakened the commitment to high quality training by both parties, trainer and trainee, that a stable, three to five-year apprenticeship fosters. 

Further, it caused most employers to reconsider their training intake and in many cases to either reduce or stop training apprentices altogether.  Finally, it created a huge industry of private training establishments, some good, some indifferent, some diabolical.  These helped to create a culture where it is almost the norm for a young person to start life with a large student loan.

By the mid 1990s, apprenticeship training had almost ceased and has only begun a slight recovery since the introduction of the modern apprenticeship scheme.  After the 1987 stock market crash, apprentice numbers went into deep decline.  By 1992 there were only 14,000 apprentices in New Zealand, today there are just over 6,000.

So What?

Training organisation bureaucrats would argue that there are more people in training than ever before.  That is true, but training should be to serve a purpose, and not be an end in itself.  Numbers do not equal quality.  In reality, there is a huge shortage of skilled tradesmen in New Zealand and there are nowhere near enough apprentices to fill the gap.

Conversely, there are thousands of unemployed or under skilled young people languishing on benefits, stuck in dead end jobs, or wasting their time and taxpayers’ money on courses of dubious value.

Why should we care?  Young people are still in training, either on the job, at polytech, or in private institutions.  We should care because the best and cheapest method of training is struggling, while more costly and less satisfactory options are growing.

We should care because thousands of young people are incurring huge student loans to do courses of questionable value when they should be getting paid to learn on the job.  Student debt is ballooning out of control while teenagers are paying big money to earn unit standards in everything from scuba diving to basket weaving.

We should care because many of these courses are little more than “self esteem factories”, turning out “graduates” with totally unrealistic ideas of their ability.  Recently I spoke to an 18-year-old girl who was about to start her own car wrecking yard on the recommendation of her business course mentor.  This girl, and hundreds like her, should be starting at the bottom in an apprenticeship, not wasting their time and money on stupid schemes.

New Zealand industry is starved of skilled tradesmen, which is stunting economic growth.  We have the insane situation where thousands of bright young people are doing expensive courses or dead end jobs, while hundreds of employers with huge skills to offer are either reluctant or unable to train them.

Many of those businesses that could be training our future tradesmen are simply refusing to do so.  Hundreds of ridiculous unit standards must be assessed and written up in triplicate. They are not even all work related.  I have to assess my apprentices on brushing their teeth, or holding a conversation with their mother-in-law.  Employers are sickened by the countless farcical “assessments” that apprenticeship training now entails, the huge drain on time and the spiralling costs from the multiple bureaucracies involved.

In many parts of the country there are even community trusts that handle paperwork and subsidise costs so that local businesses can be enticed into employing apprentices.  That people are willing to do this is admirable.  That they should have to is disgraceful.

The “baby boomers” who learned their trades in the 1960s, 70s or 80s are now retiring or moving into management.  Who is going to train the next generation on the factory floor?

Social Costs, Social Gains

Our totally inadequate apprentice training also carries huge social costs.  Teenage years have a huge impact on later life.  It’s then that good work habits, goal setting, teamwork and self-responsibility are learned.  Also, they’re when criminal and anti-social behaviour, drug and alcohol abuse usually start.  Young people often turn to negative behaviour because they lack purpose and discipline.

An apprenticeship provides purpose, discipline and hope for the future.  Apprenticeships also expose teenagers to mature mentors and confidants who can help guide them through the tough years.  Most young people will accept guidance more readily from their “master” than they will from Mum or Dad.  Many of our fatherless young males would also benefit from contact with older male tradesmen.

Even the traditional low wages paid to apprentices have a social benefit.  Junior apprentices have to budget every cent – the value of money is learned early.  Young apprentices almost always have lived at home, in hostels or in private board.  This means more adult supervision for longer and, consequently, less likelihood of a young person running off the rails.

New Zealand is rapidly developing a welfare-dependent underclass, comprising largely of Maoris and Pacific Islanders.  Once Christchurch was host to hundreds of young Maori apprentices who lived in marae-based hostels.  Those former “hostel boys” are now mostly self-employed or highly paid tradesmen.  They are part of the Maori “middle class”.

Those hostels were closed some years ago.  Those boys’ younger brothers and sisters aren’t becoming carpenters, diesel mechanics or hairdressers any more.  Many are on the dole, working as labourers or doing “hip hop” or basket weaving courses on student loans.

Expanding the apprenticeship system would give hope to thousands of disadvantaged young people.  It would whittle away at the underclass and give poorer people a clear road to a better standard of living.  It would help bring the underclass back into the mainstream.

Rebuilding the apprenticeship system would even breathe new life into dying rural communities.  Young people could learn a trade in their own community and then start their own local businesses to train the next generation.

Apprenticeships are a rite of passage.  It eases the transition from child to adult in a very practical manner.  A strong apprenticeship system would do more to lower drug abuse, juvenile crime and youth suicide, than any number of social workers, policemen or boxing politicians.

Apprenticeships, formal or informal are a key component of building a stable, free, society. By providing a way for older people to pass on experience it helps bind the generations. Apprenticeships are excellent for teaching respect in younger people and humility in their elders.

Apprenticeships are the ultimate win-win.  They are good for the individual apprentice, they are good for the employer, they’re good for the economy and they’re good for our society.

How Do We Do it?

To get people employing apprentices in large numbers, I believe we must do several things – all of them taxpayer-friendly!

Abolish Unit Standards

We must abolish the unit standards system that is probably the main disincentive to employing apprentices.  The unit standards system attempts to train by dividing trades into numerous physical skills that must be mastered.  This produces apprentices who are basically trained monkeys.  They can do a series of tasks on command but may not necessarily understand why they are doing them.

Learning should be an organic process.  Principles should be learned, and then applied in practical reality to produce understanding.  A good tradesman instils in his apprentice the principles of the trade; whether it is how yeast works in baking, how paint flows or how to bone out a cattle beast.

By understanding basic principles, the apprentice can apply their skills to varied situations. They can learn to integrate skills, to problem solve and become real masters of their art.  Unit standards, is an extremely clumsy and primitive approach to learning.  All New Zealand’s universities have rejected it, and few, if any, other countries have adopted this inferior system.

Abolishing unit standards would immediately eliminate the need for assessors.  Currently large firms must train an on site assessor to mark off their apprentices “progress”.  Smaller firms must do this job themselves or pay an outside assessor $40 or more an hour to do it for them.  Trained teachers are getting bogged down with unit standards in our high schools.

How is a one-man band paperhanger meant to cope?  Small wonder that very few small companies now employ apprentices.

Broaden the System

We should extend apprenticeships and cadetships back into areas like primary teaching, journalism, nursing, and new areas like computing, retail and tourism.  Even some professions such as the law, surveying and accountancy should return to training at least some of their staff through apprenticeships.

In Germany, young people can and do apprenticeships in almost any area. The mighty German economic machine exports skilled tradespeople and technicians, and has very low youth unemployment. Throughout Western Europe, it is the norm for non-university-bound teenagers to start their working life in an apprenticeship.  Why shouldn’t we have the bulk of our school leavers in apprenticeships?

Start Them Early

We should lower the school leaving age, especially for those starting an apprenticeship. Once a teenager could leave school at 15, start an apprenticeship and be qualified at 19. Now most will leave school at 16 or 17, do a year at polytech on a pre-apprenticeship course (with a student loan), and then, if they’re lucky, start their apprenticeship.

People in this situation have commitments and want an adult wage.  They don’t want to start at the bottom and are often less teachable.  Pre-apprenticeship courses are no substitute for the real thing and are often actually counter productive.  

Many employers complain that many of these trainees think they are above the simple tasks that real apprentices are required to learn.  Life has its hierarchies and by starting at the very bottom of the ladder, apprentices tend to learn them very well.  Apprenticeships should be geared as much as possible to start in the mid teens.

Reduce Government Involvement

We should reduce government involvement in apprenticeship training as much as possible. Each industry should run its own training to its own standards. The 2002 Budget committed an extra $41 million to “Modern Apprenticeships” over the next four years.  

Last week, the Government announced that it would pump in $9 million to produce an extra 1,000 apprentices - that’s $9,000 per apprentice.  Why pay to do what people will do for free if left alone?  Apprenticeships are a bit like marriages, only they last longer.  Does the Government have to pay people to get married?

The beauty of apprenticeship is that it is (or should be) self-funding.  A properly run apprenticeship system should cost the taxpayer virtually zero.  In fact, there should be a net gain as apprentices each pay a small amount of tax rather than taking out a student loan.

Industry should be awarding its own qualifications, so NZQA involvement could be axed and even the small polytech input could be privatised. Governments love to bureaucratise and complicate things.  

A recent Human Rights Commission document on the modern apprenticeship scheme proposed that taxpayer-funded apprentice co-ordinators should take over the role of apprenticeship recruitment from employers.  Further, it proposed that these co-ordinators be set recruitment quotas based on race, sex and disability.  Even worse it wants co-ordinators to be paid bonuses for recruiting from the appropriate minorities.  

Do you pay taxes so that that your car can be fixed by a Tongan lesbian with a gammy leg? Labour’s modern apprenticeship scheme is an expensive, politically correct bureaucratised scam.  Don’t be fooled by it.  Industry likes to simplify.  The cheaper and simpler we can make apprenticeships, the more employers will embrace them.  Get the government out of the way and employers will quickly rediscover the benefits of training apprentices.

Utilise the Military

We should expand the one area where government should play a role in apprentice training –the military.  The army, navy and air force used to train hundreds of diesel mechanics, radio technicians, aircraft engineers, carpenters, chefs and sign writers.  Some industries, such as aircraft maintenance, were built largely on ex-military staff.

The forces have the infrastructure and the skill base to turn out highly skilled people, and we’re paying for it through our taxes anyway.  In the late ‘80s the Government abolished the army cadet scheme and with it most of the army’s apprenticeship programme.

Today the army employs approximately 10 apprentices a year.  The situation isn’t much better in the navy or what used to be our air force.  

The coming ACT/National Government should immediately implement an extensive system of military apprenticeships.  This would help both the military and future civilian employers.  It’d also very inexpensively increase the pool of military-trained people for any future defence emergencies.  Some funding for this could come from part of the education vote that remains unspent each year.  The rest could come from an unused student loan budget.

Conclusion

Not training apprentices costs us all.  It costs us economically, through lost production and under-utilisation of training resources and personnel.  It costs us socially, through increased crime and anti-social behaviour.  Most importantly, it cost thousands of young individuals an opportunity to build a better future for themselves and their children.  There are thousands of employers who would like to train more apprentices.  There are thousands of parents who would love to see their teens in trade training.

There are thousands of school leavers every year that could and should be “doing their time”.  There are millions of taxpayers who would rather see their burden shared by thousands of apprentices than be forking out billions on student loans.

Politicians must realise that the people who would gain from the restoration of a real apprenticeship system, far outnumber the education bureaucrats that might lose out.  Any politician prepared to champion the apprenticeship cause will earn a lot of friends.

The near destruction of the New Zealand apprenticeship system was an act of incredible folly.  Let’s not perpetuate the mistake.  Apprenticeships are an overlooked institution.  It’s a bedrock of society and deserves our respect and support.  

I hope ACT will seize the opportunity to champion the traditional apprenticeship system.  I believe it would help ACT’s image to promote such a positive and popular concept.  But bugger that, we are a party that does things because they are right.  That’s all the reason we need.

ENDS