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‘The Germans are poaching our skilled workers of the future' warns training campaigner

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apprenticeship_1819891bGermany's £120 million apprenticeship scheme that fills their future skill shortages with British youngsters has been criticised by apprenticeship campaigner Will Davies, who warns that these are the very workers we need to keep in the UK.

"Not every youngster will want to learn a foreign language and live abroad to receive a decent training opportunity. The success or failure of this scheme hinges on whether we can offer apprenticeships of the same quality in the UK," said Davies, who is the co-founder of property maintenance and refurbishment company aspect.co.uk.

The German scheme offers all-expenses-paid, three-year apprenticeships that include wages, trips home and even free language lessons to youngsters with good ‘A' level passes.

"It is obviously a tempting offer for the best British candidates but these people are the next generation of skilled workers which we need for our industries here," Davies added.

Germany has an ageing population and its hope is that young Britons (aged between 18 and 35) will marry and settle in Germany after their training period is over to fill their impending skill shortages.

"There are over one million young unemployed in the UK and they are becoming totally demoralized by the job market. If we don't deal with the problem we will be paying for our failure for decades to come," said Davies.

"We have to improve the quality of training and apprenticeships that are on offer in the UK and motivate youngster to engage with them. If young people see the most qualified amongst them moving abroad in search of quality training that is unlikely to help the situation," he said.

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aspect.co.uk has developed a system of boot camps to recruit youngsters for their own apprenticeship schemes.

"On our boot camps, youngsters were put through a series of fitness, literacy and numeracy tests. They were able to commit to the scheme because we were able to demonstrate that the reward was genuine on-the-job training," said Davies.

"The individuals who were prepared to contribute the most to the boot camp were the individuals who aspect.co.uk has benefited most from employing."

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