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Trade unions as advocates of quality apprenticeships: L20 briefing to the G20 Apprenticeships Conference

24/02/2015

  • L20 Note for the G20 Apprenticeships Conference, Feb 2015pdf

For a number of reasons, apprenticeships, training and skill development as well as the certification of skills have become important issues for trade unions. The L20 is therefore joining the 2nd G20 Conference on ‘Promoting Quality Apprenticeships’ on 25 February 2015 in Antalya. In doing so, the L20 prepared the “Quality Apprenticeships – What are trade unions doing?” briefing (pdf download on the right hand side) that outlines why and how unions are strongly involved in VET and apprenticeship programmes and provides key points on what constitutes “quality apprenticeships”.

Unions across different skill formation regimes focus on the integration of employee voices into training and workforce development by implementing new modes of informal or formal partnerships with management or by strengthening existing union-management cooperation on skills formation.
Trade unions are committed to the vision of high quality apprenticeships as a key element of skills development for the current and future workforce and a decisive pillar of making our economies more inclusive and fair, sustainable and prosperous. By taking account of the differences in institutional settings of national skill formation regimes, trade unions have spread the learning and training message. There are a number of principles that must be met in order to ensure that the vision of high quality apprenticeships is realised in a way that is beneficial to apprentices, employing businesses and the society as a whole.

The conference in Antalya is only one stepping stone towards ensuring that the issue of quality apprenticeships is effectively addressed by the G20, but also through a closer involvement of and cooperation between the B20 and L20.