Adapting apprenticeships for the reskilling and upskilling of adults

This research paper has been produced as part of the ILO project, Apprenticeships Development for Universal Lifelong Learning and Training (ADULT), funded by the Government of Flanders. The ADULT project aims to explore how apprenticeship systems are being modernised and transformed to promote and enable lifelong learning and decent work for youth, adults, and older workers (both employed and unemployed). Apprenticeships for adults [those aged 25-65] are a viable option to meet the growing need for upskilling and reskilling and, in comparison to on-the-job or non-formal training, they enable more sustainable career changes. Completing an apprenticeship in adulthood makes it easier to change an occupation or a job, move up or across corporate hierarchies, become self-employed or gain access to further and, in many countries, higher education. Despite the abundance of comparative studies on apprenticeship that have been produced within the last ten years, very little is known about apprenticeships for upskilling and reskilling of adults.

This analysis reveals that adult apprenticeships exist at practically all levels of education, from basic levels to advanced levels in higher education, and address diverse target groups, from low-skilled migrants to higher education graduates. However, provision is often limited and countries tend to limit apprenticeships to specific levels, learners and functions. Countries also differ greatly in terms of the extent to which apprenticeships are used by adults. Based on the analysis, a number of actions are recommended, including: (1) ensuring that quality frameworks and standards for apprenticeships of international organizations explicitly refer to adult learning and disadvantaged learners, and that they adhere to the principles of lifelong learning; (2) encouraging national governments to ensure that apprenticeship for adults are stated explicitly as an option for upskilling and re-skilling in their national lifelong learning or skills strategies; (3) encouraging social partners to secure the quality of jobs and workplaces, because this is a precondition for quality apprenticeships, and to foster measures to overcome gender inequality; (4) extending the existing collection of co-funding instruments to a worldwide usage while considering the different contexts of high-, medium- and low-income countries; and (5) improving international data on adult apprenticeships by providing information on enrolments in work-based learning by age in the [UNESCO-UIS/OECD/EUROSTAT] UOE data collection.

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