BCITO construction apprentice retention: undertaking research in a period of complex change
Authors:
Greg Durkin and Adam Barker
BCITO, New Zealand
Theme: International
Presentation:
In a constantly changing world, it is vital to cultivate a dynamic and future-ready workforce. But when the rate of change is so fast that the situation has already morphed by the time the earliest signs of a new trend are detected, how can we effectively monitor progress and make appropriate interventions?
BCITO, New Zealand’s largest Building and Construction Industry Training Organisation, has recently enjoyed a surge in active apprenticeships, from around 11,000 in 2019 to a peak of 23,000 in 2022. However, BCITO has also seen a corresponding, if not larger, increase in overall withdrawal numbers prior to completion; an increase in the proportion of withdrawals in the early stages of training; and a slight decrease in programme completion rates.
Understanding what is going on with apprentice withdrawals, and what can be done to address them is challenging because of multiple factors over the past five years. As well as the impact of a construction boom followed by a downturn and the direct effects of COVID-19, this period included New Zealand’s biggest reform of vocational education in many decades, including introduction of various fees schemes to make apprenticeships more attractive to learners and employers; and changes to programme structure & delivery. We hypothesise that these factors played some part in the construction apprentice withdrawal trends that BCITO is seeing, and informs interventions needed to tackle them.
To unravel the underlying dynamics driving apprentice retention, and build interventions alongside industry, BCITO embarked on an apprentice retention project in early 2024. This is a mixed-methods, action research project, leveraging quantitative data analysis, apprentice and employer interviews, and collaborative workshops with apprentices, employers, and BCITO staff.
Join us as we delve into our research approaches, findings, and interventions. We will share the practical steps that BCITO is taking to adapt to complex change. Additionally, we contend our new approaches to understanding and management of learner withdrawal has considerable relevance to the broader VET sector.