Transitions from school to work in a ‘dual’ apprenticeship system

This chapter advances a new perspective for approaching the role of discourse and interaction in vocational education and training (VET), a perspective that sees these ingredients not as peripheral components of the training curriculum, but rather as central mediating tools for vocational learning.

The chapter focuses on apprenticeship programmes in the context of Switzerland, where the dominant form of training consists of a complex combination of school-based and practice-based learning. According to such a ‘dual’ training system, apprentices experience a plurality of training sites. They move back and forth between vocational schools or training centres, where they are introduced to both technical and general content, and ordinary workplaces, where they acquire practical skills and encounter the specific requirement of work production tasks. For many years, apprenticeship programmes following the scheme of the dual system have regularly been reported as efficient strategies for securing employment and supporting smooth transitions from school to work (Dubs 2006). However, recent research also shows that accomplishing the transition between learning sites such as vocational schools and workplaces is not always a benign experience, but provides apprentices with numerous challenges and, often, contradictory expectations. Depending on the occupations and the geographical areas, between 20 per cent and 40 per cent of apprentices who enter the dual VET system do not complete their apprenticeship within the stated terms of their contracts (Stalder and Nägele 2011). Of these, 9 per cent change occupation, 11 per cent have to repeat a year, 7 per cent change training company, and 7 per cent drop out from the apprenticeship system without having any immediate alternative pathway. Recent studies have investigated the causes leading to young people dropping out or making changes in apprenticeship programmes (Lamamra and Masdonati 2009). These studies depict a nuanced portrait of the dual VET system and show that transitions from school to work are often far from smooth and unproblematic. They conclude that poor working conditions, low support by trainers and unsatisfactory workplace relations emerge as the main causes leading to dropout.