Sunday Business Post*

Sunday, 8 March 2015

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10

Apprenticeship system
to get shake-up

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Council is taking proposals

icate students obtaining huge
from employers until the end numbers of points leading to
of this month and will then academic qualifications at
make recommendations on third level, he said.
Plasterers are to be trained in which courses should be approved.Fitzmaurice said that a similar
two years instead of four as
review of apprenticeships
English said that 10 million in Britain had led to 170courses
part of a major shake-up of the
had been set aside to fund
apprenticeship system.
being put in place, with a
There are plans to have new courses this year. He said target of getting an extra one
he was confident that extra million apprenticeship places.
1,000 paid apprenticeships
for trainee truck-drivers, as money could also be found.
The Taoiseach has made it
well as new apprenticeships
for travel agents, retail staff clear that the cabinet wants
this to happen. We have
and chefs.
The government is aiming around 30 apprenticeships
here, compared to 300 in
to boost the number of apprenticeships
available and to Germany, he said.
Apprentices get paid a wage
boost their status, which has
always suffered in comparison by their employers while they
are doing their training, which
to third level courses.
Minister of State for Skills is a mixture of on-the-job
and Research Damien English training and classroom sessions.
said it had already been decided
that the length of a plastering But in another move to boost
apprenticeship would the sector, the government is
be cut from four years to two. also going to subsidise some
With modem gear involved of the employer payments to
in plastering, you dont need to apprentices through the Jobs
have a four-year qualification. Plus Scheme.
This scheme currently
Two years is enough, he said.
Due to the property crash, provides payments of up to
10,000 for hiring workers
the number of plastering
apprentices has plummeted who are long-term unemployed.
from 248 in 2005 to just nine
English said that Jobs Plus
last year. The Construction
Industry Federation (CIF) would fund the early stages
has warned that the supply of apprenticeships.
We recognise there is a
of badly needed new homes
could be hampered by similar demand for the skills. What
shortages in other wet weve been doing over the past
couple of months is beating
ttades.
There were just 20 new the bushes and talking to industry,
he said.
bricklaying apprentices last
year and 21 painter-decorators. Independent TD Michael
Fitzmaurice, who has developed
his own policy paper on
But the apprenticeship review
being carried out by the apprenticeships, said there
government is much broader was a cultural bias towards
than construction, with plans third level education
to develop new courses in different We have almost become
sectors. Ihe recently accustomed to the concept of
the need for all Leaving Certif
established Apprenticeship
BY MICHAEL BRENNAN

POLITICAL
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