Apprenticeship

Apprenticeship is a system for training potential new practitioners of a trade or profession with on-the-job training and often some accompanying study. Apprenticeships may also enable practitioners to gain a license to practice in a regulated occupation. Most of their training is done while working for an experienced employer who helps the apprentices learn their trade or profession, in exchange for their continued labor for an agreed period after they have achieved measurable competencies.

Apprenticeship lengths vary significantly across sectors, professions, roles and cultures. In some cases, people who successfully complete an apprenticeship can reach the "journeyman" or professional certification level of competence. In other cases, they can be offered a permanent job at the company that provided the placement. Although the formal boundaries and terminology of the apprentice/journeyman/master system often do not extend outside guilds and trade unions, the concept of on-the-job training leading to competence over a period of years is found in any field of skilled labor.

There is no global consensus on a single term for apprenticeship. Depending on the culture, country and sector, the same or similar definitions are used to describe the terms apprenticeship, internship, and trainee-ship. The latter two terms may be preferred in the health sector. One example is internships in medicine for physicians and trainee-ships for nurses – and western countries. Apprenticeship is the preferred term of the European Commission and the one selected for use by the European Center for the Development of Vocational Training (CEDEFOP), which has developed many studies on the subject. Some non-European countries adapt European apprenticeship practices.^{[citation needed]}

The system of apprenticeship first developed in the Late Middle Ages and came to be supervised by craft guilds and town governments. A master craftsman was entitled to employ young people as an inexpensive form of labour in exchange for providing food, lodging and formal training in the craft. Most apprentices were males, but female apprentices were found in crafts such as seamstress, tailor, cordwainer, baker and stationer. Apprentices usually began at ten to fifteen years of age, and would live in the master craftsman's household. The contract between the craftsman, the apprentice and, generally, the apprentice's parents would often be governed by an indenture. Most apprentices aspired to becoming master craftsmen themselves on completion of their contract (usually a term of seven years), but some would spend time as a journeyman and a significant proportion would never acquire their own workshop. In Coventry those completing seven-year apprenticeships with stuff merchants were entitled to become freemen of the city.

Apprenticeship was adopted into military of the West African kingdom of Dahomey. Soldiers in the army were recruited as young as seven or eight years old, as they initially served as shield carriers for regular soldiers. After years of apprenticeship and military experience, the recruits were allowed to join the army as regular soldiers. With a combination of lifelong military experience and monetary incentives, a cohesive and well-disciplined military emerged in Dahomey.

Apprenticeships can be divided into two main categories: independent and cooperative.

Independent apprenticeships are those organized and managed by employers, without any involvement from educational institutions. They happen dissociated from any educational curricula, which means that, usually, the apprentices are not involved in any educational programme at the same time but, even if they are, there is no relation between the undergoing studies and the apprenticeship.

Cooperative apprenticeships are those organized and managed in cooperation between educational institutions and employers. They vary in terms of governance, some being more employer lead and others more educational institution lead, but they are always associated with a curriculum and are designed as a mean for students to put theory in practice and master knowledge in a way that empowers them with professional autonomy. Their main characteristics could be summarized into the following: