John MacDonald: An apprenticeship is anything but second-best

I always have and always will be a huge fan of on-the-job training. Which is why I think it’s brilliant that we’ve got an education expert saying today that the apprenticeship system needs an overhaul.

And not only that, he wants to see schools doing more, and is suggesting they could offer a trades preparation qualification to create a pipeline of new apprentices - but also to remove the stigma that an apprenticeship is second fiddle to a university degree.

John MacDonald: We need to ditch this obsession with uni degrees

I didn’t go to university and there’s a bit of a dad joke that I trot out about that now and again. I say that I’m a student of life, in no rush to graduate.

So maybe I’m coming at this with a biased view of the world, but I agree with this academic at the University of Canterbury who is saying today that universities have just become factories that pump out people with degrees. And he wants them to become elite institutions again.