The scandal of inadequate apprenticeships

More and more companies are setting themselves up as training providers and Ofsted says that it will struggle to keep tabs on these. The government needs to be prepared to dig into one of its flagship policies and to hold its hands up if apprentices are let down by the system that it has allowed to flourish.
Meg Hillier, MP
Chairwoman, Public Accounts Committee

Sir, Many young people now go straight to university with barely a second thought for the alternative options available. Social expectations are such that it is often deemed better to study for a second-rate degree from an underperforming institution than to join the workforce and gain practical, real-world experience.

Many jobs of the future don’t even exist yet, but learning valuable skills such as coding will equip the next generation with the digital know-how to succeed. Teenagers should think carefully about how to future-proof themselves. If university can do this, all well and good. But if not, starting work, gaining skills and avoiding years of debt should be a clear option.
James Reed
Chairman, Reed

Sir, Few people would not agree that more good-quality vocational training would be good for young people, the economy and even for universities. I wonder though whether it helps to speak of “degree-level” programmes (letter from Sir Peter Lampl, Jan 24). Does this not measure apprenticeships precisely in terms of degrees rather than seeing them as different and valuable in their own right?
Dr Michael White
University of St Andrews

Sir, The Prince’s Trust is right to say that menial jobs can be a good first step (leading article, Jan 24). I have always maintained that my early stints as a labourer, forecourt attendant, general maintenance handyman at a school, window cleaner, printing machine operator, removals operative, shop salesperson, gardener, assistant greenkeeper, trainee quantity surveyor, assistant buyer with an engineering business, taxi driver, tree surgeon’s gofer and film runner prepared me well for the multifarious skills required of my three company directorships.

In those days, I didn’t have a clear idea as to what I wanted to “be” when I grew up, but my haulage company, online shoe shop and children’s TV production company have all benefited from my early experience.
Pete Bryden
Llanrothal, Herefordshire

OXBRIDGE ‘REJECTS’
Sir, Mark Bailey, high master of St Paul’s, is right (Thunderer, Jan 25): Oxbridge has a distorting and completely outdated pull on 21st-century Britain. The parents are much to blame; again and again, as head of Brighton College and then Wellington College, I saw Oxbridge rejects go off to other universities in Britain and abroad with a lasting impression that they had somehow failed to get into the best.

Equally absurd is the obsession with Oxbridge as a measure of the success of social mobility in Britain. The young from disadvantaged backgrounds would often be much better off going to more local high-achieving universities than being shunted off to Oxbridge, which might make the social class warriors feel good but can leave the young people lost in a totally alien environment. I went to Oxford, and it suited me perfectly, but it isn’t the be all and end all.
Sir Anthony Seldon
Vice-chancellor, University of Buckingham

FORGOTTEN POTHOLES
Sir, Your leading article (“Gone to Potholes”, Jan 25) is right to highlight the importance of local road maintenance. However, the problem runs deeper: politicians tend to go for glamorous big transport projects, including big new roads, while neglecting unglamorous but important everyday transport such as local road maintenance and bus services. If anything, the problem will be made worse by the government’s planned re-creation of the “road fund” for vehicle duty revenue, which on present plans will go entirely to the strategic road network and major roads, with nothing for local roads or local transport.

We have argued for a “fix it first” approach, giving priority to maintaining existing roads, but sadly building ever more and wider new roads seems likely to continue to take priority over sorting out potholes.
Stephen Joseph
CEO, Campaign for Better Transport

SCHOOL OF LOVE
Sir, Further to your report “Top school bans pupils from having relationships” (Jan 24, and letter, Jan 25), in the 1960s I was given “six of the best” and issued with warning of expulsion for having been seen talking to a girl from a neighbouring school, out of school hours, while wearing school uniform. The head of Ruthin School would have been considered a liberal thinker by our old head teacher.
Brian Brayford
Penarth, Vale of Glamorgan

Sir, It is no surprise that Toby Belfield, the head of Ruthin School, is a mathematician. Anyone who has taught literature and poetry (from any culture) knows there is little chance of preventing romantic relationships.
Stephen Suttle
Marston Magna, Somerset

Sir, In my experience (as a mother of four, and having spent 45 years in teaching), if you tell a teenager not to do something, they immediately put every effort into doing the opposite.
Jacqueline Frampton
Leigh-on-Sea, Essex

HOME EDUCATION
Sir, For many years I ran pottery, art and stone-carving classes for a group of very sociable home-schooled children and can assure Elizabeth Ewart-James (letter, Jan 24) that their parents appeared to be doing an excellent job, buying in expert tuition whenever necessary. My students always concentrated in class, were unfailingly polite — to me and each other — and valued every piece of work they produced, as did their parents. Sadly, the same cannot be said for the children who attended my after-school classes, who were often undisciplined and rude — to me and each other — and whose parents rarely bothered to return to collect their children’s finished pieces.
Linda Zeff
London N20

HEATH INVESTIGATION
Sir, There has been widespread concern about the nature of the investigation by Wiltshire police into Sir Edward Heath under Mike Veale, its then chief constable. I now read (News, Jan 25) that Mr Veale has been confirmed as chief constable of Cleveland. Amazing as that may be, surely that should make it easier for there now to be an independent and effective inquiry into the extraordinary way in which Wiltshire police conducted Operation Conifer.
Lord Sherbourne of Didsbury
House of Lords

‘PEAK CAR’ SOCIETY
Sir, The report by the University of the West of England and University of Oxford (“Driving goes into reverse as Britain hits ‘peak car’ ”, Jan 25), is out of date, like many academic studies by the time they get published. In fact, 2014, the last year studied, was a nadir. Between 2014 and 2016, total car mileage in Great Britain rose by 4 per cent to record levels (according to Department for Transport traffic estimates), the number of driving licences in England rose by 2 per cent (National Travel Survey) and car ownership has reached an all-time high with 79 per cent of households in the UK having access to a car (Living Cost and Food Survey). The figures published in the study are per capita and ignore the 13 per cent growth in UK population since 1995. “Peak car” remains a myth: we are still a growing car-dependent society.
David Leibling
Editor/adviser, RAC Report on Motoring 1989-2017

SNOW JOKE
Sir, I drive a 4x4 and on a few occasions over the past few years have helped to pull other drivers’ cars out of snow drifts (Matthew Parris, My Week, Jan 24, and letter, Jan 25). However, the last time I did this, having extricated a car from a snowy ditch, the driver I was helping failed to realise he now had some traction and proceeded to drive his car full speed into mine. Fortunately the damage was limited but now I think twice before offering help and at least try to assess the other driver’s likely competence first.
Hamish McGrady
Vantaa, Finland

COMMON HERITAGE
Sir, The Rev Tim Storey (“A good Samaritan”, letter, Jan 25) admirably furthers the cause of interfaith dialogue in his quoting of the Koran. However, he fails to mention that the Koranic verse indicating that whoever saves a single life, it is as if he had saved the lives of all mankind, is itself a quotation from the Talmud, written centuries earlier.
John Dunston
Oxford

SHOW MUST GO ON
Sir, The present owner of the Theatre Royal Haymarket mentions the difficulty of hiring actors prepared to to perform in a play for more than 12 or 14 weeks. My mother (Nan Munro) had a small part in Waters of the Moon, by N C Hunter (which ran at the Haymarket from 1951), for 835 performances. She was also required to understudy Dame Edith Evans and Dame Sybil Thorndike. Not a single member of the cast was ever “off”. The only time they did not perform was a week in June, when the whole cast were given seats in the Mall to watch the Coronation procession.
Angela Galbraith
London W4

BEWILDERED AM I
Sir, The reason for the “rude departures” from the Royal Festival Hall in particular (letters, Jan 23 & 25) is the “last train syndrome”, as patrons worry about getting home from Waterloo station.

Years ago, by some miracle or other, my wife and I were in the front row for an Ella Fitzgerald concert. Ella had left the stage to prepare for her last session and an adjacent front-rower who had been fidgeting for some time got up in a gorilla-like crouch and made for the exit, just as Ella reappeared. In the most plaintive of voices, but heard by all, she said: “Aw, honey, you ain’t leavin’?”

The would-be escaper paused for a millisecond but the call of the train was too much and away he slunk, to a chorus of boos and applause.
Roger Lindsay
East Horsley, Surrey