Apprenticeships enjoying a surge in popularity

Award-winning apprentices Hazel Johnston and Leah Carroll Byrne explain the value of on-site learning with Rita de Brún

Hazel Johnston is employed as an apprentice automation engineer by the medical device company DePuy Synthes. She’s also studying manufacturing engineering at Munster Technological University in Bishopstown.

Is it a biscuit? Is it a bar? That was the question posed in a confectionery advert that ran on TV back in the day. It sprang to my mind when perusing Thomas McCarthy’s excellent 1977 report ‘Apprentices in Ireland, which was part of the Commission of European Communities’ Social Policy Series.

It’s an interesting read. In it, McCarthy alludes to the fact that in the 1970s, apprenticeships in Ireland were a topic of ‘considerable national debate’ of the ‘protracted and intense kind.’