The expansion of undergraduate education has not taken people away from apprenticeships, according to research from the estimable National Centre for Vocational Education Research.
The news challenges the common assumption that trade training is seen as inferior to university study throughout the community, and that the shortage of sparkies and plumbers can be fixed by comparative marketing.
The NCVER finds that characteristics of students choosing either of the two post-secondary systems has not significantly changed since the creation of the demand-driven system in higher education.
From 2007 to 2019 there was no alteration in post-school choice based on gender, Indigenous status, geographic location, maths achievement or having attended a public or private school.
Continuing characteristics of apprentices over the period are, male, Australian-born, speaking English at home, having gone to a government school and coming from rural/regional areas.
People with higher PISA scores and from higher SES backgrounds lean towards university, as do migrants and first-generation Australians.
The implication for addressing skilled trade shortages is stark.
“Young people who aspire to attend university are unlikely to be persuaded into an apprenticeship, (while ) young people who aspire to an apprenticeship hold very specific ambitions for an occupation and are unlikely to be persuaded into university,” the report by Joanne Waugh, Cameron Forrest, Kate Dowling states.
NCVER counsels against the now-accepted wisdom that VET needs marketing that promotes apprenticeships over HE. “Rather than attempting to convince young people to undertake an apprenticeship rather than university, it may be more productive to focus on attracting those young people who have no clear aspiration to attend university or those with poor access to information about post-school pathways to consider apprenticeships.”
That means the 175,500 15—19 year olds in 2022 not “fully engaged” in work or study.
