Actus writes: Practicalities of making apprenticeships work

With over 12,000 signing the petition urging the GOC not to allow optometry apprenticeships, feelings are clearly running high, but little of the online furore offers any suggestions on how an apprenticeship might operate to provide a quality educational experience that results in safe and competent practitioners at the end. The ‘debate’ at 100% Optical was nothing of the sort as the discussion stayed within the panel, there being no time for questions from the standing room only audience.

Nevertheless, the panel clarified some important points and raised valid concerns including those of the Ophthalmic Practitioners’ Group outlined in Optician last week, which were answered to some extent. Once the apprenticeship standard is agreed by the employers’ trailblazer group the panel made clear that only higher education institutes can award degree level qualifications. It would then be over to the universities and colleges to decide if they wanted to get involved and how they could adapt their programmes to meet a route to registration that would require as a minimum 20% off-the-job training.