The private sector is always focused on the future, and always in a hurry to get there. Most of us understand this and fully support this drive for achievement. But it is also in our interest to take a moment and make decisions now to see results in a few years’ time. All our economic sectors, whether manufacturing, financial services, hospitality or wholesale and retail, depend primarily on how the product is made or monitored, or how the service is provided. This means that the quality of the employee’s input moulds the final output. This quality is formed through training and experience, and no entrepreneur can achieve this from one day to the next.

This is where apprenticeships and job placements come in. Planning now, together with the students and the educational authorities, will assure good results in future. The EU has been looking in this direction since 2002, with the launch of the Copenhagen Process. The European Alliance for Apprenticeships brings under one umbrella public authorities, business and social partners, VET providers, youth representatives and Chambers of Commerce in order to mould and improve initiatives for successful apprenticeship schemes. The Alliance is dedicated towards ensuring concrete action from the Copenhagen Process, which culminated with the Bruges communiqué in 2010. This states that “work-based learning is a way for people to develop their potential. The work-based component contributes substantially to developing a professional identity and can boost the self-esteem of those who might otherwise see themselves as failures.” (Bruges Communiqué, 2010)

The benefits of apprenticeships and vocational and education training (VET) are shared between learners, employers and society. Work-based learning introduces students and the unemployed to the world of work, not only in their learning area but also in soft skills. This concept also reflects the EU flagship initiative for 2020 “Youth on the Move”, aimed at improving educational systems and ease youths in the world of work. “Youth on the Move considers early workplace experience as essential for young people to develop the skills and competences required at work. Learning at the workplace in apprenticeship-type training is judged a powerful tool for integrating young people gradually into the labour market” (European Commission, 2010).

In Malta, MCAST has, ever since its inception, focused on vocational education, mostly through apprenticeship schemes and on-the-job training. This is most commendable and I, as a Board Governor between 2001 and March 2013, together with my colleagues, always sought to push this concept forward. I also subscribed to this belief, in a concrete way, throughout all the years that I was managing director at Playmobil Malta.

The time has now come for this concept to become a way of life for all tertiary educational institutions, be they academically or vocationally oriented. Employers also need to be more proactive in this area and to come forward and participate in such schemes with an “investment strategy” in mind. This means that employers should be ready to invest in the human capital of apprentices and students through on-the-job training. They can do this by drawing up formal training programmes, dedicating some of their time and monitoring apprentices to reach milestones and targets.

Structured training programmes for apprentices will prevent employers from falling into the trap of a “substitution strategy” (i.e. using apprenticeships for unskilled and occasional work). By doing so, employers will show that they have the future in mind. Failing to do so will, in the long run, hurt all those involved, including the employers themselves.

Helga Ellul is a Nationalist Party candidate in the upcoming European parliamentary elections