Construction apprentices encourage other young people to 'earn while you learn'
- Details
- Hits: 3489
Twenty-year-old Alex O’Brien had set his sights on becoming an accountant – and had the exam marks to match his goal – but at the last minute decided to become a construction apprentice instead after finding out about the benefits of work based learning.
“It’s the best decision I’ve ever made, even though it was completely out of my comfort zone and everything I’d been told about career paths that would suit me,” said Alex of Aston-on-Trent, who attended Chellaston Academy in Derby.
“I knew my skills would fit the accountancy profession, and my school encouraged me to take that route, but I wasn’t 100% convinced it was for me,” he added.
Alex started his apprenticeship as a technical trainee at local contractor G F Tomlinson in September last year. He said he has enjoyed every second of his training to date and has decided his goal is to become a quantity surveyor or estimator at the company.
Alex was speaking at the latest East Midlands Property Alliance (empa) academy forum, where local construction apprentices gathered in Leicester to talk about their achievements and plans for the future.
empa – a partnership which improves the procurement and delivery of construction projects - has its own training academy. Its work includes creating apprenticeship opportunities, new jobs, setting up work experience placements, providing site visits for school and college pupils and training days for the construction workforce to up-skill.
The empa academy forum was held at Interserve Construction Ltd in Syston on Tuesday, March 17. At the event, empa framework contract partners were keen to hear about apprentices’ experiences, how they are benefiting from their training and how it can be improved in the future.
Academy coordinator Sam Webster opened the event with some impressive statistics about what the academy had achieved over the last 12 months.
He said: “Since April 2014, the empa academy has trained and supported 45 apprentices across the region and created 122 jobs. empa partners have visited over 7,000 schools and colleges in the East Midlands to encourage students to consider construction as a career and we’ve created 76 work experience placements for those who expressed an interest.
“We are delighted with the progress of the academy so far, but we are also keen to emphasise that construction is a very rewarding and appealing sector to those who might not have thought about it yet.
“There are so many different types of construction related apprenticeships available, from bricklaying to quantity surveying, for both girls and boys – and we want to make sure that message is out there loud and clear. The construction industry has so much to offer and it is an ever changing sector. The need for new talent in the industry has never been greater”
The academy operates across the region and involves empa framework contractors including G F Tomlinson, Ashe Construction, Robert Woodhead, Lindum, Interserve, Clegg Construction, Jeakins Weir, Morgan Sindall and Wates Construction.
As Sam explained, the empa academy event demonstrated the range of apprenticeships which are available in the industry including on-site construction, business admin, marketing, finance and HR to name just a few.
At the event there were guest speakers includingTony Pinnock, principal at Wreake Valley Academy in Syston and Interserve’s group technical apprentice manager Kate Hickey.
Tony said he was very impressed to hear about the achievements of the young apprentices who had chosen to enter work through the empa academy and would be taking back what he’d learnt at the event to his own school.
He said: “I’ve been really interested to hear about the successes of the young people who are training with the empa academy. I think it is very important for schools to ensure they are not encouraging all students to go to university as a blanket approach – but instead to assess the individual skills and interests of each student and direct them appropriately.”
Alan Coole, head of empa, added: “This was a fantastic event for apprentices to share their experiences and talk with construction industry professionals about the benefits of on the job training, which includes earning while learning, rather than full time post-16 education.
“We are particularly keen to understand from our young workforce what attracted them to a career in construction – who better to be our training ambassadors and help with future recruitment?” Alan added.
Framework manager at Interserve James Eley-Gaunt chaired the forum and rounded the morning off with a summary of what had been learnt.
He said: “It has been a real pleasure to hear about the journeys of these young construction apprentices and to learn about how we can improve our training programmes from the perspectives of the apprentices themselves. We will certainly be holding similar events to this one in the future.”