Promoting inclusiveness in apprenticeships

The following measures can promote inclusiveness in apprenticeships:

  • organizing campaigns and information days in schools, and in the wider community, to promote the benefits of quality apprenticeships for all
  • setting targets for increasing participation and reserving apprenticeship places for people from vulnerable groups and women
  • providing in-depth diversity training to all staff with recruitment and mentoring responsibilities
  • informing enterprises about the range of agencies that exist to support members of under-represented groups in relation to quality apprenticeships
  • providing a specially targeted advice and guidance service, with the cooperation of organizations that represent or support vulnerable groups and women, both before and during quality apprenticeships
  • providing some form of financial incentive – for example, in the form of a recruitment grant, a tax exemption or subsidies for social security payments – for enterprises that take on apprentices from under-represented groups
  • improving reporting, accountability and transparency, by publishing the number of apprentices employed by enterprises, programme completion rates and transition-to-work rates, with the figures broken down by gender, ethnicity and disability
  • ensuring that apprentices are adequately remunerated during the entirety of their apprenticeship and that they are covered by social protection schemes in accordance with the national requirements
  • making quality apprenticeships more flexible to accommodate the different needs of women and persons with disabilities
  • making physical adaptations to classrooms and workplaces to ensure that persons with disabilities can participate productively
  • developing an information service for disseminating ideas and experiences of what works in achieving equality and diversity in quality apprenticeships
  • encouraging workers’ organizations to represent apprentices and protect their rights and to contribute to the development of a strategy for the inclusion of underprivileged groups in quality apprenticeships.