Creative Skillset Blog

Getting Creative with Modern Apprenticeships

Photo by Derek Lunn

As Scottish National Apprenticeship Week starts today, we’ve the perfect opportunity to celebrate the achievements of apprentices within our sector, as well as highlighting how an apprenticeship can work for employers and young people alike.

Mention apprenticeships in Glasgow, the former second city of the empire, and people of a certain generation will think of the shipyards and other heavy engineering factories, with young lads serving their time as apprentice welders, riveters and all sorts of other hard, manual, yet skilled, occupations. On top of this tradition of manufacturing, older generations might still associate apprenticeships with entry into areas like plumbing, joinery and construction.

Fast forward to the 21^st century and Modern Apprenticeships have transformed opportunities for young people in Scotland. There are now accessible pathways into a sometimes bewildering array of occupations; from all the traditional areas to new hi-tech industries, the service sector and the Creative Industries.

What’s more, employers recognise the benefit in taking young people without any preconceived ideas into work and helping them begin their careers in a structured and supportive way, while also contributing to day-to-day operations.

Creative Skillset’s portfolio of Modern Apprenticeship frameworks spans Creative and Digital Media (at Level 3) and Fashion and Textiles Heritage (at Levels 2 and 3) and both are helping support a new generation of skilled young people.

BBC Scotland was first to recognise that the Creative Skillset Modern Apprenticeship in Creative and Digital Media could help to break the cycle in broadcasting that sees over 60% of the workforce having a university degree. The opportunity to gain skills and earn a living wage at the same time is also an attraction for many young people who have chosen the apprenticeship route over a certain university place.

Current apprentices will be getting the opportunity to test their new skills by co-presenting the Fred MacAulay show on BBC Radio Scotland Wednesday morning – make sure you tune in to hear them from 10.30am!

Over in the Scottish Border’s, local textiles mills have taken to the Modern Apprenticeship in Manufacturing Textiles Production (Level 2) with gusto. Against a troubled recent history of mill closures, and a sector that ranked 9^th out of 10 in attractiveness for young people as a career destination of choice, the sector struggled to recruit young people.

Around a dozen major employers now work together to deliver the Modern Apprenticeship across the local area, creating a new structured path into the industry for the first time in years. Such has been the success of this work that they are beginning to make plans with provider Cardonald College to move on to the Level 3 award and, working with the Scottish Textiles and Leather Association, they are beginning to attract interest in their delivery model from other mills around Scotland.

This has proven to be a real triumph and we’ll be celebrating at Hawick Town Hall this afternoon when 31 apprentices will be receiving their MA level 2 in Manufacturing Textiles certificate of achievement.

So if you have outdated ideas about what and who apprenticeships are for, and that they only represent a narrow range of occupations, think again. Whether you’re a young person looking for that first break, or an employer looking for ways of building your capacity, have a look at what an apprenticeship could do for you.