The Psychology of Pricing Work

This is Robin Clement, and I wanna touch on news that the CITB has unveiled plans for a series of accelerated apprenticeship programs across bricklaying, carpentry and roofing.

So the initiative aims to qualify trainees in as little as 14 to 18 months compared to the traditional two or three years.

The CITB say they can deliver the shortened apprenticeships through intense early stage learning, structured block release and onsite experience.

They also claim that the new training format will increase uptake, boost completion rates, and get more skilled workers into the industry.

Okay, so if trainees qualify in as little as 14 to 18 months, what is the reality of that? Now, I can tell you what the reality is, and I can also tell you about my experiences of exactly this sort of setup because when I was at college in 1986, we did six months in the college.

We did six months out on site in the first year.

That was the first year done.

Then we did a six weeks on, six weeks off in the second year, then we went to day and evening release, and then we came back in for the last six weeks, and that was over two years.

And then we went on to do advanced crafts, which was a separate year.

But ultimately, if you wanted to become a carpenter and joiner to the level, so, um, city and guilds, craft one and two, that was all you needed to do for the two years, and it was really good.

It was exactly what's written here, but it wasn't done in 14 to 18 months.

We got it into two years.

And there was a lot of motivation from local employers because they, CITB were paying me 26 or £27.50 a week and my travel, and the employer had no, uh, financial liability other than giving us a placement and getting us out on site.

Okay, so this is very similar to that.

However, I wouldn't have become the carpenter I am if I knocked six months off that because my course worked and it was fit for purpose and it had been developed and evolved over time.

Okay? Now what we're talking about is evolving something new, which, which is a change from what we're doing, and there's so many variables around it.

Can we get industry to buy into it? Why will they buy into it? Is there enough firms to give these apprentices places? I don't think there is.

So it's, it may work on a very small level, but I really don't think it's gonna happen.

And the elephant in the room is, we've said this so many times, but becoming a decent trades person with good hand-eye coordination, just the basic sort of skills and the knowledge to go out and first fix a house in the case of a carpenter, and second fix a house, maybe fit a kitchen, you cannot do that in that, in that period of time unless you are lucky enough to be out on site where you're building new houses and you're getting to do all of these things.

So it is unfortunately fraught with problems.

Okay? I really do think this is gonna be a struggle because all the colleges do things differently as well, and I know that there's been all this money piling into cen- construction centers of excellence, and it confuses me to how this all fits in with this.

Is this something separate? Is this something new? All I know is every single month or, or, or couple of months there's another press release about changing something.

It was exactly the same around T Levels when they said the construction T Level, um, is gonna be the way forward.

It's gonna be academic, and it's gonna be a good foundation, and that went, you know, that fell over, and I knew at the time that would fall over.

I just thought to myself, "I don't get it.