Apprenticeship

system of training

Apprenticeship is a system of training people who are learning how to do a job which needs special skill. Someone who is learning in this way is called an "apprentice". An apprentice will learn by working with someone who is already skilled at a job. They are like a teacher and pupil.

The profession of roofing is learned through apprenticeship in Germany.
A medieval baker with his apprentice. The Bodleian Library, Oxford.

Development

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The system of apprenticeship has been used for many hundreds of years. In the late Middle Ages the craft guilds and town governments used to watch and control the system. A master craftsman had the right to employ young people to work for them and pay them a small salary. In return the apprentice would be learning the trade. Most apprentices were males, but female apprentices are more common nowadays, especially in crafts such as embroidery, silk-weaving etc..

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Further reading

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  • Modern Apprenticeships: the way to work, The Report of the Modern Apprenticeship Advisory Committee, 2001 [1] Archived 2007-10-27 at the Wayback Machine
  • Apprenticeship in the British "Training Market", Paul Ryan and Lorna Unwin, University of Cambridge and University of Leicester, 2001 [2] Archived 2010-06-27 at the Wayback Machine
  • Creating a ‘Modern Apprenticeship’: a critique of the UK’s multi-sector, social inclusion approach Alison Fuller and Lorna Unwin, 2003 (pdf) Archived 2005-10-16 at the Wayback Machine
  • Apprenticeship systems in England and Germany: decline and survival. Thomas Deissinger in: Towards a history of vocational education and training (VET) in Europe in a comparative perspective, 2002 (pdf) Archived 2011-07-21 at the Wayback Machine

Other websites

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