Back to school on apprenticeships

Aditya Chakrabortty (G2, 24 September) has reopened the season for "more means worse" critics of university expansion. This really betrays the naive elitism and conservative thinking of some labour economists. Just because occupations like policing and nursing used apprenticeship models of training 50 years ago does not mean that such models are still appropriate. Both occupations now need sophisticated skills in dealing with high technology in a diverse society.
In the UK, we no longer accept policing as a form of licensed thuggery or nursing as a version of domestic service. Medicine and law abandoned apprenticeships because they were no longer fit for purpose. In a modern economy, this is true of a growing range of occupations. Adam Smith recognised that the division of labour was a dynamic and evolutionary process: some of his successors might do well to remember this.
Professor Robert Dingwall
Nottingham. More...