Why do an apprenticeship? Vocational training pros and cons, and why Confucius encouraged the practice
Apprenticeships provide valuable opportunities for on-the-job learning and gaining experience. But there are disadvantages too, while social hang-ups and lack of incentives for businesses can be a problem in Hong Kong and China
Last year, Hong Kong’s Vocational Training Council (VTC) urged local companies to take on more apprentices to support a drive to promote vocational training among young people.
An apprenticeship is essentially training on the job – “learning and earning” as it were. In some countries they are very highly regarded.
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Switzerland, for example, which has one of Europe’s lowest youth unemployment rates, has a long history of combining classroom learning with on-the-job experience and two-thirds of students opt for such vocational training. It is clearly a system that works well for the Swiss, an affluent country with a labour market the World Economic Forum described last year as “the best functioning globally”.
However, apprenticeships are not viewed so positively everywhere in the world. Both the UK and the US, for example, place more emphasis on education than vocation.
The Chinese, on the other hand, have a long history of apprenticeships. This is founded on words from Confucius that are quoted on many Chinese apprenticeship websites, with the meaning: “If you memorise knowledge only, no matter how much you learn, what practical use is it if you cannot adequately perform tasks?”
