Apprenticeships and University education- both are needed

Change One Thing: Apprenticeships need to be in the education mix - Education News | Primary, Secondary & Third Level | The Irish Time - Tue, Nov 26, 2013: "The one change to our existing educational system I would like to see is that we would value high-skills vocational training for the 20 per cent of students who are not particularly interested in, or suited to, a curriculum with an academic focus.
Industry could support such a radical change by providing a comprehensive apprenticeship structure for interested students from the age of 14. As part of the programme, students would continue to progress alongside their peers in core subjects such as English, maths and a European language.
Having provided for the needs of our practically minded students through an apprenticeship programme, we should maintain the current range of Junior Cert subjects for the 80 per cent who have no difficulty in studying them, thus preserving subjects such as history and geography as core to our curriculum.
Germany, Austria, Denmark and the Netherlands have a fraction of the youth unemployment when compared to Ireland and we need to ask why this is the case. The answer, I believe, lies in educational structures that value vocational education."

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