Dinosaurs in a Brave New World? Apprenticeships and Traineeships in the Age of Lifelong Learning. Working Paper.

The question of whether apprenticeships and traineeships can survive in Australia's emerging social and economic environment was explored through a review of two bodies of research. The first consisted of recent reviews of the quality of traineeships in Queensland and Tasmania and apprenticeships in Victoria. The second was a study on the future of work that was being conducted by the Research Centre for Vocational Education and Training and Australian Centre for Industrial Relations Research and Training. The recent success of Australia's New Apprenticeship system was considered in the context of the structure, content, and skill requirements of the jobs currently being created. The following problems were identified as affecting the long-term survival of apprenticeships and traineeships: increasing detachment from a centralized industrial relations system and industrial awards; increasing reliance on skill opportunities provided by the content and structure of work in individual enterprises rather than within an industry; high levels of employer influence and declining levels of employer investment in training; increasing dependence on a regime of public subsidy and training regulation; uncertainty about how to deal the competing trends of on-skilling and de-skilling; and reluctance to admit that not all workplaces are or even aspire to be learning organizations. (Contains 12 references.) (MN)