Rediscovering Apprenticeship: Research Findings of the International Network on Innovative Apprenticeship (INAP)

Citation

Gibbs, P. (2011), "Rediscovering Apprenticeship: Research Findings of the International Network on Innovative Apprenticeship (INAP)", Higher Education, Skills and Work-Based Learning, Vol. 1 No. 1, pp. 80-81. https://doi.org/10.1108/heswbl.2011.1.1.80.3

The rediscovery of the value of apprenticeships has been one of the most significant trends in vocational education in recent years, and has prompted an array of research and development projects in countries around the world. In this volume, the renewed interest in the apprenticeship tradition and the various steps towards the implementation of innovative apprenticeship programmes are analysed and discussed from different perspectives.

Beginning with a number of chapters that describe recent developments in apprenticeship training in different national contexts, the book moves on to analyse the way in which both the quality and profitability of apprenticeship act in concert as the most influential drivers of innovation in this field.

This book makes an important contribution to the international literature on apprenticeship. It draws together some of the leading researchers in the area, and with its overview of a number of national Vocational Education and Training (VET) projects, provides a body of knowledge on current practices and issues that has previously been lacking in this complex interdisciplinary field. The lessons learned from countries' experiences, as presented in this book, provide a valuable platform for policy makers and scholars alike.

The book contains 15 chapters which offer insights and policy discussions for Germany, France, Ireland, Italy, Hungary, England, Australia, the Netherlands and the USA and a range of regional perspectives as well as more general discussion. This collection of edited chapters provided in a compact volume is an essential resource for researchers and the editors, Felix Rauner and Ercia Smith, must be congratulated for this contribution to the literature. I look forward to the next volume where the non‐Anglophone countries and Europe do not feature as prominently as Africa, South America and Asia. All the chapters are worthy of separate reads and the book in its entirety provides an international perspective.

Each chapter is worthy of its inclusion in the book and I liked two of them in particular. The first was Peter Schlögl's on transition from vocational training to higher education, in which he presents the case of German‐speaking countries, drawing on how policy formation and implementation varies along federal or regional lines. The second chapter that particularly drew my attention was Jeroen Onstenk's work on coaching and collective work‐based learning. The author argues for getting explicit connectivity between sites of learning through structuring and supporting the transition from inside the school with bridging coaching into the workplace.

The book is based on the research of the INAP network, founded in 2006, whose purpose is to draw together common research interests around apprenticeships and, as the network, claims their re‐discovery. If this is the quality of the output of the network then we should look for more. The price is rather high but all good libraries should have a copy.