I haven’t quite decided what to make of this week’s major news that a group of optical employers wants to establish an apprenticeship for the role of optometrist.
It’s still very early days and we don’t yet know what the degree-level scheme will look like, but reaction from within the industry has been decidedly mixed. A scour of optometry forums and Facebook groups shows the wide gamut of opinion. Some have decried it’s ‘devaluing the profession’, while others view it as a good opportunity to represent what the modern-day optometric coalface looks like. I don’t like sitting on the fence, but I’m not sure there is a right and a wrong in this case.
An optometrist apprenticeship would allow talented candidates that might not have considered professional healthcare roles via the traditional route of university and it’s perfectly reasonable to say that more accessible costs would widen the appeal of optometry to individuals from diverse backgrounds.
Last year GOC research on education found 60% of new optometrists in the UK felt the clinical experience on their course was limited and did not reflect real life practice or typical patients. On the face of it, an apprenticeship founded and conducted by employers might redress that.
But employers being so intrinsic to the apprenticeship might be one of its biggest problems. Day-to-day learning needs to represent what’s best for the development of students, not what’s best for an employer. While the scope of an optometrist is workplace agnostic, their roles are anything but. This will require robust regulation.
There’s no easy way to approach the subject of how apprenticeships are perceived. Even though such an apprenticeship would be degree level, there will be those who view the scheme as low skilled. When so much is made of an optometrist’s skillset, the timing of this apprenticeship seems a little out of sync.
That all said, get in touch and tell Optician your views.
