The European or German model certainly has its advantages.
The Atlantic Magazine, in a nearly 10 year old article entitled "Why Germany Is So Much Better at Training Its Workers" by Tamar Jacoby, (Oct 16, 2014) stated: (Begin direct quotations)
"...I’ve just come back from Germany, where I visited some half dozen apprenticeship programs at brand-name companies like Daimler, Siemens, and Bosch, and the metaphor I came away with is a native tree—flourishing, productive, highly adapted to its local climate zone, but unlikely to take root or grow in a climate as different as the America's. This doesn’t mean we shouldn’t adapt the German model. But it’s not going to be quick or easy.
The U.S. has its own tradition of apprenticeship going back many years. But like most kinds of vocational education, it fell out of fashion in recent decades—a victim of our obsession with college and concern to avoid anything that resembles tracking. Today in America, fewer than 5 percent of young people train as apprentices, the overwhelming majority in the construction trades. In Germany, the number is closer to 60 percent—in fields as diverse as advanced manufacturing, IT, banking, and hospitality. And in Europe, what’s often called “dual training” is a highly respected career path..."
"A final virtue of the German system: its surprising flexibility. Skeptical Americans worry that the European model requires tracking, and it’s true, German children choose at age 10 among an academic high school, a vocational track, or something in between. But it turns out there’s a lot of opportunity for trainees to switch tracks later on. They can go back to school to specialize further or earn a master craftsman’s certificate or train as a trainer in the company’s apprenticeship program—and many do. What education reformers call “lifelong learning” is still a distant dream for most Americans. In Germany, it’s a reality."
"The final obstacle is arguably the biggest: American attitudes toward practical skills and what Germans still unabashedly call “blue-collar” work. Attitudes are changing in Germany too. Globalization has brought the bachelor’s degree, unknown until recently, and with it, a new, broader interest in attending college. But there’s little sign that the growth in BAs is undermining apprenticeships. And in both settings, university and dual training, it’s agreed that the purpose of education is to prepare people for jobs. In America, we’re not sure. We’re committed to the idea of education that prepares people for life and suspicious of anything that smacks of training." (Bolding is mine for emphasis only, end of direct quotations.)
I know that if I wrote a dissertation today on the current need for that type of a training program I would be a pariah amongst educators yet, the truth sometimes hurts.
I'll let this topic go, thanks for the interesting replies and polite divergent views.
