Donald Trump gave us “The Apprentice.” But can he give America apprenticeships? ADVERTISING Donald Trump gave us “The Apprentice.” But can he give America apprenticeships? If he did, he’d be borrowing the European model for training the next generation for
Donald Trump gave us “The Apprentice.” But can he give America apprenticeships?
If he did, he’d be borrowing the European model for training the next generation for an economy ever-more reliant on software skills and cyber-smarts. Germany, for example, matches up teens with companies and begins honing their acumen in a trade or skill while they’re in high school. By the time they graduate, they have, if they choose, a job already lined up at the company where they’ve apprenticed. The Swiss have kids as young as 16 apprenticing in 230 fields — from information technology and health care to banking, insurance, even dance.
Who’s to say President Trump would ever think about carving out a place in the American education system for apprenticeships? Why, Trump did. He brought it up during German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s recent visit to the White House. The German apprenticeship model, he said, “is one of the proven programs to developing a highly skilled workforce.”
The concept is centuries old. Think Middle Ages, when a youngster learned a craft from a craftsman, and in return the craftsman got cheap labor. Today, the training a German youth gets coincides with his or her secondary education — it doesn’t replace it. Alongside algebra and Goethe, students learn roofing, IT know-how or sales management. In European countries that have apprenticeships, the programs are voluntary. Students opt for an academic track or a career track.
It’s clear apprenticeships pay off. Among developed countries, Switzerland in 2016 had the lowest youth unemployment rate, along with the world’s fourth highest per capita income. Youth unemployment in Germany is just 7.4 percent, half of what it is in the U.S.
Here, fewer than 5 percent of young people train and work as apprentices. In Germany, that number is 60 percent. In parts of America, however, the idea has caught on. South Carolina’s apprenticeship effort now has 600 companies in its fold, training 4,500 students. The result: South Carolina has lured several European manufacturers, which employ thousands of young Carolinians.
All of that is encouraging, but it’s not enough. The demand for skilled workers in an increasingly digital economy will only grow. European countries such as Germany, Switzerland, the Netherlands and Austria have shown that apprenticeships can become vital wellsprings for skilled labor; the U.S. risks getting left behind if it doesn’t innovate in the way it trains workers.
One tantalizing element of the European model is its reliance on the private sector to foot the bill. It’s the companies that have a dearth of skilled labor, so they’re the ones that underwrite much of the cost. South Carolina employers pay for most of the cost of apprenticeships there. That’s as it should be — on a larger scale.
That’s where Trump should step in. He needs to get educators and employers on board with the notion of making apprenticeships commonplace. In the era of innovation, America ought to innovate the way it educates.
— Chicago Tribune
