JTL Blog


Apprenticeship vs university – You decide

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For many people leaving school, going to university is the right decision. It’s what they’ve always wanted to do and it makes sense to them to head down the route of getting a degree.

But for many, many others, it is not.

For so many reasons, the idea of going to university can be a daunting one, whether it’s the burden of student debt – even though many students will never have to pay it off – or the feeling that after 14 years of schooling you’ve simply had enough of academic life and want to get out there and start earning a living.

For us at JTL the key thing is that your school makes you aware of the options available to you. After considering them all, you may still decide that going to uni is right for you. If so, that’s fine and we wish you all the best. But for an increasing number of young people they know that uni isn’t the best option and they want to know more about the other things they could be doing after finishing their A levels.

The Government thinks the decision making process is so important – that they have changed the law to make sure schools provide the information young people need to help them make their decisions at this vital time in their lives. For example, schools now must invite in training providers to talk to young people about the work-based alternatives to more academic work at university and one of the key options in this day and age has to be the huge wealth of apprenticeship options open to you.

For many young people leaving school, particularly those with a practical side to their nature, more learning in an academic environment is the last thing they want to do. They want to learn, but they want to learn skills that will set them up forlife, with a work-based opportunity that they can follow, develop and turn into a life-long career. And yes, earning while they learn, because the very essence of an apprenticeship is that as well as learning, going to college or to a training centre one day a week, the other four days of the week you work for your employer and get paid for what you do.

At JTL we provide apprenticeships to help people become electricians or heating and plumbing installers in the main – jobs that are really needed in our economy, areas where there are skills gaps to fill and once qualified, you will have a career for life working for an employer or increasingly, working for yourself. There are so many options open to you.

But there are literally hundreds of options for apprenticeships in a massive range of work based skills, in other areas of the construction sector, also in care related sectors, office based opportunities, sports related options – the choice is massive. And there is a lot of help out there for you to choose the right one for you.

 

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So, if uni is your first choice, that is great and we hope you succeed. If not, don’t be pushed into that option against your will because your parents think “it might be best”, or because of peer pressure – your best mate is going to uni so “I suppose I’d better do that.”

It’s your future and you deserve to give it some serious thought.

Do some research into your options. Ask questions at school and if the careers advisor only seems to be interested in persuading you to go to university, head for the huge number of web sites available to you to find out more about your options… one of the best is ironically on the UCAS website, the site you go to for information about university places! Head for www.ucas.com/apprenticeships-in-the-uk.

You can always head for JTL’s website at jtltraining.com to find out about what we can offer and why we have the best rate of completions of any training provider. You need to sign up to the best possible quality of training if you go for an apprenticeship – make sure you look at the figures to see if the provider you have found is delivering high quality training that will improve your chances of getting a high quality placement with an employer that will help you to succeed.

 

Editor’s note: This post was originally published in December 2018 and has been revamped and updated for accuracy.

 

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