Apprenticeships fail those who need them most

Labour's latest attempt to upgrade the beleaguered scheme smacks of dumbing down, writes Martha Gill

- Martha Gill

Britain was built on apprentices. "At every point in the three centuries from 1500 to 1800, apprenticeship was the main focus of human capital investment in England," writes Patrick Wallis, a professor at the London School of Economics, in a new book.

Since the 1990s we have been busy rediscovering this old-fashioned idea, an alluring solution to all sorts of modern problems: social mobility, the skills gap, youth unemployment, overpriced university degrees and crippling student loan debt. But in more than three decades we have never quite got it right. Reforms due in April are the latest in a long series.

There are plenty of reasons to covet apprenticeships in 2026. As Al disrupts the job market, career changers will need to retrain. And last week the Office for National Statistics reported that nearly a million young people are not in work, training or education, worse than the EU average. “There’s a broader fear parents have, that their kids... are not going to do as well as we've done. That's the first time that’s really happened in a century,” warned Alan Milburn, the former health secretary, who is chairing a review of youth unemployment.