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Dans cette contribution nous abordons un problème qui intéresse actuellement tout un groupe de chercheurs dans plusieurs pays européens et aux États-Unis. Dans le cadre d’une étude des systèmes d’éducation considérés comme jouant un rôle principal dans la reproduction sociale pendant la seconde moitié du XIXe siècle, ce groupe étudie plus particulièrement le phénomène du renforcement et de la consolidation de la place des études humanistes dans les programmes scolaires du secondaire dans trois pays en voie d’industrialisation, c’est-à-dire l’Angleterre, la France et la Prusse. Ce phénomène est d’autant plus intéressant qu’il semble se produire indépendamment du degré de contrôle gouvernemental sur le système scolaire. Mais notre communication traite principalement de l’Angleterre, de 1867 à 1897. Elle tente de démontrer que le processus que nous appelons la systématisation du secondaire, a produit comme résultat inévitable, dans un contexte social et historique donné, le renforcement du statut des études humanistes. En employant le terme gouvernemental dans le domaine du secondaire, nous parlons d’une hiérarchisation des établissements du secondaire établie selon des critères de succès exigés par la reproduction sociale. Nous pouvons distinguer deux groupes d’établissements secondaires à l’intérieur de cette hiérarchie, ceux que j’appelle les établissements en voie d’ascension et les établissements descendants. Les ascendants répondaient aux exigences de la reproduction sociale et de la demande de mobilité sociale et assuraient le succès d’un certain nombre de leurs élèves au concours d’entrée à Oxford ou à Cambridge, et dans d’autres importants concours. Tous les établissements « ascendants » enseignaient le latin et le grec. Les établissements « descendants », en revanche, avaient des programmes plutôt scientifiques et n’enseignaient que le latin. Leur popularité auprès de la clientèle (les parents) a diminué pendant toute cette période, tandis que la demande pour les établissements « ascendants » a continué de croître. Les établissements secondaires qui perdaient leur clientèle et aspiraient à rejoindre les établissements à succès, faisaient toutefois des tentatives pour abandonner les programmes scolaires scientifiques et introduire l’enseignement du grec. Quand on considère cette systématisation comme une hiérarchisation informelle, il apparaît donc que la nécessité des programmes humanistes était imposée à toutes les écoles secondaires non par décret législatif mais par l’existence même de ce que je nomme « defining institutions », c’est-à-dire un groupe d’établissements qui s’était acquis un rôle éminent de légitimation culturelle et sociale et dont les programmes traditionnels s’imposaient à toutes les autres institutions de la hiérarchie, contraintes à faire concurrence aux établissements « définissants » sur le même marché de la reproduction sociale. En Angleterre, ces defining institutions auxquelles toute autre institution était obligée de se conformer, étaient constituées par les plus importantes « public schools ». Leurs programmes, leur organisation (sport, internat, culte en chappelle, vêtements uniformes) ont été imités par les autres établissements, jusqu’aux plus modestes, sans que ces derniers aient jamais pu atteindre le statut des « établissements définissants ». En conclusion, le renforcement du statut des études humanistes dans les établissements secondaires pendant la période 1867-1897 en Angleterre doit être compris comme le résultat inévitable d’un processus de systématisation au cours duquel un certain type d’école (la public school), dont les programmes étaient basés sur le latin et le grec, avait brillamment réussi l’insertion de ses élèves dans les plus hauts rangs du gouvernement et de l’administration. Ce phénomène apparaît moins étonnant lorsqu’on considère que cette réussite était due au fait que les concours pour ces postes avaient été élaborés par des anciens élèves des public schools et reflétaient toutes les valeurs des public schools. Néanmoins c’est précisément ce rapport école-postes, et le marché scolaire qu’il a créé, qui a déterminé l’évolution de tout le secteur secondaire en Angleterre à partir de 1870 environ.

Successive British governments have committed substantial public resources to apprentice training, but far too few young people benefit and not enough high value skills have been developed. That is the central conclusion of a new report published by the Centre for Economic Performance (CEP). The report’s author, Dr Hilary Steedman, who has nearly 30 years of research experience in this field, calls for a change in the country’s apprenticeship model.

Forward by Sir Roy Gardner (Chairman, Compass Group plc; Chairman, Apprenticeship Ambassadors Network) August 2010: I am pleased to commend this report, commissioned by the Apprenticeship Ambassadors Network, of which I am Chairman. The Network is a group of senior business leaders committed to the expansion and development of Apprenticeships. In an earlier report ‘The Net Benefit to Employer Investment in Apprenticeship Training’ (University of Warwick Institute for Employment Research, 2008) we set out the business case for Apprenticeships. That proved to be an effective medium for communicating the real and tangible benefits to employers. This time we wanted to draw comparisons on the planning and delivery of Apprenticeships in a number of other countries, with a particular focus on employer participation and involvement. Apprenticeships in this country are amongst the world’s best, but we cannot be complacent and we need to know what is happening in competitor countries and what lessons can be learnt I was re-assured in the recent general election that all the main political parties signalled their support for the expansion of Apprenticeships. I am grateful to Hilary Steedman for producing this report which I am sure will be of interest to employers and employer organisations, Government and policy makers, training organisations, trade unions, awarding bodies, academics in the vocational training field and others. We will continue to argue the case with employers for greater involvement in Apprenticeships - they are good for young people, companies and the economy in general.

This paper sets out the extent and defining characteristics of apprenticeship in Europe. Apprenticeship is then situated within the wider context of European provision for education and training of 16-19 year olds and a simple typology is proposed and explained. The German-speaking dual system countries are characterised as high employer commitment countries with minimal integration of apprenticeship into full-time 16-19 provision and weak links with tertiary education. The UK, the Netherlands and France are characterised as having relatively low levels of employer commitment but greater integration of apprenticeship into full-time provision and stronger links between apprenticeship and tertiary level provision. Recent evidence on the extent to which both apprenticeship models improve employment probabilities is reviewed and pressures on the two apprenticeship models resulting from increasingly competitive global markets and consequent changing skill needs are examined. A final section discusses whether apprenticeship in Europe can adapt to and survive these pressures.

This paper presents an overview of our current state of knowledge regarding poor motivation of 14-16 year old school pupils in the UK. A number of experts in the field from a variety of disciplines presented papers on this topic to a series of seminars held at the London School of Economics between 2002 and 2003. These papers, summarised here, present evidence from a historical, comparative, and social science perspectives and report the results of evaluation of government intervention programmes to improve motivation. International comparisons (PISA) show UK disengagement below the OECD average but the UK has the strongest link between socioeconomic disadvantage and disengagement. We identify a very small ‘out of touch’ group who have practically lost touch with school and a larger group – around one fifth of the cohort - who could be characterised as ‘disaffected but in touch’. Finally, we identify a further group – perhaps 15 per cent of the cohort who gain between 1 and 4 GCSE passes at Grades A*-C but who have not reached full potential as a result of loss of interest in learning. The ‘out of touch’ group often requires intensive one-on-one mentoring outside the school context. Evaluation of government intervention programmes has not so far shown an obvious way forward for the ‘disaffected but in touch’ group, targeted principally by workplace learning measures. For the ‘1-4 Grade C’ group, there may be something of a magic bullet - namely better vocational options.

Like the UK, Germany is facing educational challenges over information technology. Hilary Steedman, Karin Wagner and Jim Foreman look at the two countries' contrasting responses.

This paper compares the supply of specialist ICT skills in Britain and Germany from higher education and from apprenticeship and assesses the relative impact on companies in the two countries. In contrast to Britain, where numbers of ICT graduates have expanded rapidly, the supply of university graduates in Germany has not increased. Combined with the constraints of the German occupational model of work organization, it is concluded that this failure of supply may have contributed to slower growth of ICT employment in Germany. At the same time, German firms have turned to a newly developed model of apprenticeship to supply routine technical ICT skills. This strategy contrasts with British firms which recruit from a wide range of graduate specialisms and invest more heavily in graduate training. Probably in part as a consequence, apprenticeship in ICT occupations in Britain has failed to develop.

This paper reviews the main characteristics of the provision, organization and financing of appprenticeship in a number of leading European countries - Austria, Denmark, France, Germany and the Netherlands. These are compared to current practice in Britain as exemplified by Modern Apprenticeship. The main areas examined are the statutory framework and standards; employment prospects; achieving the employer-apprentice match; prior school qualifications of apprentices and motivation to enter apprenticeship; the management and financing of apprenticeship. The paper concludes that apprenticeship in Britain, judged as a programme, falls short of the standards of that provided elsewhere in Europe on every important measure of good practice.

This paper investigates the usefulness of the International Standard Classification of Education (henceforth ISCED) in cross-national comparisons within the EU. The paper first assesses the extent to which the

Referring to issues raised by recent reforms and future expansion of apprenticeship, this report reveals the consequences serious skills shortages have on the economy as a whole. It calls for radical improvements to the provision of apprenticeship training in Britain in order to close the skills gap and bring Britain in to line with other countries.

This paper uses Labour Force and other national survey data to examine stock levels and changes in the stock of skills (educational and vocational qualifications) of the population over the period 1985-1996 for six European countries with particular reference to the low-skilled. National qualifications are classified using the International Standard Classification of Education (ISCED) levels 0-7. The low-skilled are defined as those who left education and training/gained no qualifications beyond the period of compulsory schooling. All countries have reduced the proportion in the low-skilled group over the period 1985-1996; however, countries which already had the lowest levels of low skills (Sweden, Germany) made the fastest progress. Younger (25-28) populations are better qualified than the working-age populations. Considerable differences still remain between countries in stocks of skills in both the young (25-28) and working-age population. These differences are greater at the lower end of the ISCED scale (0/1/2) than at the higher end (ISCED 5/6/7). In a number of countries (France, Germany, Netherlands, Portugal) higher level educational and vocational qualifications (ISCED 3 and above) were gained at a relatively late age (22-25). In Sweden and the UK only small proportions of the low-skilled gained further qualifications after the age of 21. Proportions of low-skilled men and women in the working-age population have declined at similar rates in all countries but in Germany and the UK the proportion of women with low skills remains substantially higher. In France, Portugal and Sweden more women have a higher education (ISCED 5/6/7) than men. In Germany, the UK and the Netherlands the situation is reversed and the gap between men and women has remained largely unchanged over the period 1985-1996. On the basis of the growth rates of the past ten years, France, the Netherlands, Sweden and Germany appear to be converging on similar skill profiles for the young (25-28) population in 2010 when 10 per cent or less will be in the low skills group. On present trends it will take considerably longer for the UK and Portugal to reduce the low-skilled group to the 10 per cent level.

"The main proposals in this paper have a highly focussed aim: to prevent the continuation in Britain of an increasingly depressed group of under-skilled workers. The main intention is to ensure that all 16-19 year olds and as many adults as possible achieve at least Level 2 qualifications. For 16-19 we should require traineeships for all young people not in full-time education. Trainees would get at least one day a week off-the-job vocational education for a part-time GNVQ. The Further Education Funding Council which already organises and funds most of vocational education (over ten times more than the TECs) should be responsible for the delivery of this. The Careers Service should be strengthened to monitor and help all youngsters, and the TECs should supervise the delivery of traineeships in firms. Firms should recieve tax rebates for taking on trainees, even if the trainee wage was controlled by law. This far-reaching change would require half a million extra places in colleges. The vocational education of adults (for (G)NVQ2 and 3 or part-time first degrees) should, like full-time academic education up to first degree level, be free to the student. The state should pay the fees. This would stimulate uptake. But in addition employers should be offered tax rebates for the paid leave of workers studying for (G)NVQ2. These proposals would cost around £2 billion. This could be funded by progressively replacing student maintenance grants by loans (repaid in relation to the student''s subsequent income) and by shifting student loan finance outside the PSBR. Alternatively they could be financed by a Training Levy, by general taxation, or by borrowing, where up to £15 billion can be borrowed without increasing the ratio of public debt to GDP. At a later stage one could also consider requiring all students to pay some fraction of the fee. The Learning Bank should provide loans to enable any adult to finance maintenance while studying. The University for Industry would develop teaching packages for use by colleges and by its own distance learning systems (mainly for adults). Its packages would help to ensure quality but also to control cost."