Prime Minister David Cameron has announced that businesses taking on an apprentice will receive a financial incentive for so doing. The Prime Minister made the announcement yesterday as part of ‘National Apprenticeship Week’; small businesses hiring apprentices will be rewarded with up to £1,500.

The government’s policies had previously been under criticism from those who claimed they were affecting rural communities and businesses through cuts to essential services and failure to roll out high-speed broadband networks as promised. In the current economic climate there are also concerns that, although courses at land-based colleges are consistently full, young people are finding it difficult to secure employment afterwards.

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The incentive payment is intended to encourage employers of up to 50 people to take on a young apprentice aged between 16 and 24 for the first time. Following an initial payment two months in to the apprenticeship, the employer will receive full payment after the trainee has progressed into ‘sustainable employment’.

However, this privatisation of education and induction into work has been criticised as it will be unlikely to deliver the diverse skill sets young people need to succeed in the current ‘job market’ and as farmers, many of whom do not have the ready cash needed to take on an apprentice, are only paid the full sum once their apprentice has secured employment, it does not deal with the reality that many apprentices will not find gainful work after completion.

Although government-run rural skills body Lantra has suggested that 45,000 employment opportunities will be opening in farming over the next decade, in December, a Shropshire-based personnel advisor explained that, as the workforce in agriculture is small and often governed by nepotism, young people who do not already have inroads into farming will still have difficulty finding employment at the end of their training courses.

Also, coinciding as it does with the dissolution of the Agricultural Wages Board and the loss of EMA (Educational Maintainance Allowance), there is a danger that, in pursuing their Victorian social policies, the Tories’ decision to privatise the training of young people could result in their exploitation.  

Government figures suggest that there were a record number of apprenticeships in 2011, across all age ranges and levels of training across the apprenticeship programme. Provisional statistics suggest apprenticeships for the academic year 2010/2011 rose by over 50 per cent compared to the previous year, including land-based apprenticeships.

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