Creating an enabling environment for quality apprenticeships
In order to promote quality apprenticeships, it is necessary to create an enabling environment by taking the following steps:
- developing and implementing strategies, setting national goals and allocating adequate resources
- mainstreaming quality apprenticeships in national development strategies and in employment, education and lifelong learning policies
- developing a robust regulatory framework
- encouraging social partners – employers’ and workers’ organizations – to support quality apprenticeships by formally involving them in the entities responsible for the design and implementation of quality apprenticeships
- developing the capacity and providing support services to the social partners so that they are better placed to participate effectively in the regulatory and consultative bodies or within a broader social dialogue mechanism
- providing incentives,1 both financial and non-financial, to enterprises, especially SMEs
- encouraging intermediaries, including through financial support, to participate in the provision, coordination and support of quality apprenticeship programmes
- undertaking awareness-raising activities and promotional campaigns at regular intervals to improve the image and attractiveness of quality apprenticeships
- establishing pre-apprenticeship programmes to enable young people to acquire the competencies required to become eligible for a quality apprenticeship programme
- facilitating access to further technical and higher education opportunities for apprentices
- using new technologies and innovative methods to improve effectiveness and efficiency in delivering and managing quality apprenticeships
- giving stakeholders at the sectoral level the flexibility to recommend training duration, wages, the proportion of on-the-job training based on the complexity and investment in training required for occupations belonging to the sector.
1 For more details, please refer to section 8.3 of volume 1 of the Toolkit, as well as the DC dVET discussion paper Companies engaging in dual VET: Do financial incentives matter?, https://www.dcdualvet.org/wp-content/uploads/DC-dVET_Discussion-Note-Financial-Incentives.pdf.