Meeting the skills needs of a buoyant economy: apprenticeship—the Irish experience

Abstract

The Irish economy has grown at an unprecedented rate over the last decade and the demand for skilled workers has increased dramatically. The Irish Standards‐Based Apprenticeship (SBA) system has been one of the cornerstones of intermediate skills development with the capacity to produce high‐quality craft workers and in sufficient numbers to meet demand. Introduced in 1993 on a phased basis, it now extends to all designated trades. Several aspects of the Irish system are striking. This paper provides empirical evidence of the success of the system for training workers for the construction industry and it also identifies a number of structural weaknesses. Its initial success is attributable to social partnership and its continued success has been facilitated by the capacity of the training agencies to respond to the national need by providing additional places for the educational release element of the system. The success of the Irish model is demonstrated in this paper in a number of ways, including a very high completion rate, high‐quality training and satisfaction among all the stakeholders that it is a successful system of apprenticeship.