Are apprenticeships a genuine alternative to university study? : an investigation using administrative data

尽管“平等尊重”的呼吁在英国已经持续了70多年，但是否存在“交叉点”的问题仍然是一个备受争议的问题。在2010年学费上限增加之前的研究表明，在劳动力市场上，学术和职业资格之间没有平等的尊重（Robinson, 1997）。研究还表明，人们对学术培训与职业培训的看法可能会发生变化，最近的一项调查发现，45%的公众认为学徒制比大学学位更能让年轻人为未来做好准备，而44%的人认为两者同样好（Kirk, 2022）。值得注意的是，公共投资和政府对职业培训的明显推动，包括学徒税（DoE, 2021）。这表明经验数据、公众认知和政府政策之间存在差距。因此，有必要对理解学术培训与职业培训的经济现实进行更深入的研究。因此，这个项目的结果对于围绕就业、教育和社会流动性的公共政策至关重要。该项目也有可能提供重要的经验证据，以正确看待围绕尊重平等的强大政治言论。这个项目是经济、教育和政策的交叉点。

While the call for "parity of esteem" has persisted in the UK for over 70 years, the question of whether a "cross-over point" has remained a highly contested one.Research prior to the increase of the cap on tuition fees in 2010, suggests that there is no parity of esteem between academic and vocational qualifications in the labourmarket(Robinson, 1997). Research has also suggested a possible change in people'sviews of academic vs vocational training with a recent survey finding 45% of the publicsay apprenticeships are better than university degrees for preparing young people forthe future, while 44% say both are equally good (Kirk, 2022). Notably, there is rising public investment and visible governmental push towards vocational training including the apprenticeship levy (DoE, 2021). This suggests a gap between empirical data, public perception and government policy. As such, there is a need for more in-depth research on understanding the economic reality of academic vs vocational training. Theresults of this project thereby, stand to be very crucial particularly for public policy around employment, education and social mobility. This project also has the potential to provide vital empirical evidence to place the powerful political rhetoric around parity of esteem in perspective. This project is at the intersection of economics, education and policy.