There's benefit in destigmatizing the trades. And not every job should require a degree. I find the informatics-related apprenticeships described here an interesting contrast to the "BS in CS or you're worthless" mentality I see in some areas online.
But 16 is way, way too young to be asking someone to make major decisions about what they want to do when they grow up. At best, they should have two more years of life experience before deciding on college or an apprenticeship.
As someone who has done the informatics apprenticeship when I was 16, I don't think it is too early. I don't know many people that significantly changed their minds on what they want to do between 16-20. Only after several years of actual work experience in the field in their mid 20s or later.
I think the benifits of earning some money starting at 16 and losing most of the anxiety of getting your first real job (almost everyone I know got job offers at the company they did the apprenticeship at) outweighs the risk of making a "wrong" career choice early on. Also there are several common ways people adjusts their career over the time. E.g. studying at technical universities and doing second, shortened apprenticeships in related careers.
I think 16 is OK if the person had a good upbringing and family support. Everyone is different sure so it depends on many things.
I got a job at 15, drove a manual transmission truck on my own trial by fire, was given the responsibility to carry $10K - $20K cash deposit cash to a bank. With responsibility comes maturity but guidance is needed.
The Swiss vocational and university education system is based on a series of gates and passages. If you don't have "what it takes" to continue on your current trajectory, you are directed to another type of education. But "what it takes" is time-dependent. It often happens that someone does not have the grades to stay in school working towards a bachelor's because they don't yet have the maturity to see and make the connection between studying hard and achieving their goals. So they do a few years of vocational school and then have different opportunities to come back to university studies if that's where they are ready to be.
But that's the perfect scenario: there are abuses as well, where bosses use apprentices for crap work with little educational benefits to the apprentice.
I actually think 16 is good enough. They at least have a general idea of which area they are interested in, and then they can either move into a career path or a research path first, and then if they find they want something else they at least get some skills and money. It's a lot better than wandering around with money.
Damn I wish someone helped me select something when I was 16. I spend the following 15 years wandering around, confused. I only got into IT when I reached 35...
Young people don't need to wait until they make up their mind to move into a career. I'm going to tell my son, if he is confused and not sure what to do when he grows up, the best way is to make some money and figure out how to make more. Making more money is always right when you are confused.
Yeah, if we really wanted to improve the career match, we should reserve a big chunk (say, a year) of teenager's lives to do a whirlwind tour of some representative sample of jobs, so they'd get some kind of direct experience of what they like, and just be aware of what exists.
Eh. I started university at 16. OK, I didn't really follow my branch of engineering for the most part but it was also a weird time for how various engineering branches were evolving alongside each other.
The way I see it, you aren't really locked into any decisions when you're 16. If you fit pipes or whatever for 2 years and decide it isn't for you there is plenty of time to change paths.
This is only true if society as a whole sees it this way as well, but too often this is not the case. If you don’t start certain things at certain ages, the doors close to the next step, and then it becomes progressively more difficult to get on the track because “now you’re too old to start at the beginning” and the system is so rigid it rejects people without the prerequisites.
It’s really quite ridiculous but something I’ve experienced myself. The trick is to not hold so tight to the end result and accept that if the system won’t let you in, find things adjacent without the same requirements.
You can start with an apprenticeship and continue towards a BSc and beyond as you mature an realize you'll benefit from further education. There are plenty of bridges from the vocational school track, all the way to proper universities.
I greatly enjoyed high school in Switzerland because it is selective and 70% of my middle school classmates didn't make it.
I did an apprenticeship and then went to complete a M.Sc. at the Federal Institute of Technology (ETHZ), with only one year of additional school compared to going through high school. Wouldn't have wanted it any other way...
It's not very common, in my CS class at EPFL I think about 2-3% of students came from an apprenticeship. Though more recently I have two former coworkers who followed a similar path and are now at Apple and Google respectively.
On the other hand, pursuing a B.Sc (and possibly M.Sc) at a "university of applied sciences" (FH or HES in the local parlance) part time (i.e. while on the job, as a working student), is very common nowadays.
In my middle school we had to take a rotating vocational program, where each quarter your class was shifted into a new room and teacher to learn something new. I learned to sew in that program (but alas, since there were six areas and four quarters, I didn't get to do them all and didn't get to try cooking, which would have been fun).
Some sort of program to allow the early people to intern through myiple different trades would be interesting. They'd be like interns, and get to see a little about each of some different vications (so e selected, some semi-random) for a month each, then get to choose what they like, or qualify for or have aptitude in.
The "BS in CS..." story also applies to Swiss apprenticeships when it comes to IT: I never had an apprentice that did not continue on to studying for a BS once they passed their few apprentice years.
The idea that not all adolescents are best put in front of books and teachers full time early on, but will make good student once they're older is kinda obvious in retrospect.
that not true and that article is also painting a rosier picture of apprenticeships than reality can deliver, at least here in Germany.
First regarding the salary claim. It is a clear it depends, but overall this is rarely the case. According to some listicle articles I found one of the highest paying jobs that has vocational training is a boat mechanic which pays a median before tax salary of 4.100 EUR. The median salary for a software developer is 5.600 EUR before taxes. One of the top payed but less niche trades, a mason, has a median before tax salary of 3.450 EUR.
But 16 is way, way too young to be asking someone to make major decisions about what they want to do when they grow up. At best, they should have two more years of life experience before deciding on college or an apprenticeship.
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