For some years now, there have been calls for enlarging the domain of apprenticeships, a device which has been historically aimed at supporting the school-to-work transition of young people, in the direction of raising the age limits for access and include as beneficiaries the entire adult population in working age (Cedefop, 2018). Among the most recent steps, the Council Recommendation of 15 March 2018 on a European framework for effective and quality apprenticeships highlights that they may facilitate adults' professional development and transition to a (new) job and the Recommendation on Quality Apprenticeships, recently approved by the ILO, underlines the importance of promoting skills development opportunities addressed to adults to respond to needs that may arise in relation to the search for a new job and/or the willingness to improve their knowledge and skillset.

So far, Italy has taken timid steps in the direction of promoting an expansion of apprenticeships to adults by extending its well-known and most used form of apprenticeship - the so-called “professionalizing” one - to people who have lost their jobs; however, this enlargement has not yet found fertile ground for development and adequate numbers of beneficiaries. Hence, a research question has been formulated on which elements can promote the success of an apprenticeship towards the adult population, which may be also attractive to businesses.

With the aim of understanding which elements can be identified as "enabling factors" that support the growth of an apprenticeship scheme for adults, a comparative study was launched in 2023 for analyzing different schemes of European countries’ dual systems allowing access to adults. Building on the study carried out by the ILO (2022), which clustered all countries (in Europe and beyond) where apprenticeship schemes open to the participation of adults are in place into three groups, by differentiating them on the share of the over-25 participants, those to be involved in the comparative analysis have been chosen, picking at least one from each sub-group. Hence, the following countries have been selected for the study: Switzerland, Denmark, England, Finland. In all these countries, apprenticeships allow free access from adults, whether unemployed or employed, regardless of their educational level or already acquired qualifications. And in all these countries the share of adults has been growing in recent years compared to the total number of apprentices.

The study takes the start by examining how the different countries have realized the enlargement of beneficiaries of apprenticeships to adults, investigating the regulations, measures and initiatives that support this extension, and then examining the results in terms of participation. The in-depth analysis of the strengths and weaknesses of these schemes, as emerges from the output of the monitoring and evaluation activities carried out at national level, in addition to what is discussed in the relevant scientific literature, allows us to draw useful elements for identifying those that can be defined as the "enabling factors" for promoting the participation of adults to apprenticeships. The study is still ongoing, until the end of the year, and we are pleased to share and discuss the results achieved so far.

Given the scope of the study, which requires an investigation of different countries’ experiences of adult apprenticeship, the method considered as the most suitable is a secondary analysis conducted through a desk research. It began with a systematic review of the relevant scientific literature. To this aim, recent articles published in peer-reviewed journals and books have been examined by exploring most common (and reliable) repositories. Other sources used for the study include reports published by government organizations and other bodies in charge for monitoring and evaluating dual systems and/or adult education at country level. These reports, which are usually published periodically according to a specific mandate, constitute the substantial majority of information sources. The reports – and other relevant documents like as press releases, interviews, transcription of speeches, and so on - are usually available for download on governmental websites, and that have been raided to extract needed information. All collected pieces of information have been inserted in single countries reports, according to a common format. Not all the information needed to fully understand and analyze each national adult apprenticeship scheme have been retrieved so far, as the study is still on-going.

So far, the study has allowed to identify some "enabling factors" to be considered in order to design and implement a policy measure that can be attractive for companies and adults. Some factors refer to the regulatory scheme of the device, focusing on two elements: the regulation of the learning path and the remuneration. With respect to the former, for adult apprentices the formal training path is usually shorter compared to what is required for young people. The shortening is based on the assessment of the prior learning, considering all knowledge and skills already acquired, even in non-formal and informal contexts, so that this assessment become a key step in accessing apprenticeships. However, the main element at the base of the promotion of apprenticeships towards adults - at least in light of the results achieved so far - seems to lie in the reliability of the national education and training system and the qualifications issued in it. In countries where professional qualifications are highly valued by companies, apprenticeships become an attractive and therefore usable tool for re-insertion in the labour market or for the finding a better job or gaining a higher position in the same company, both for the unemployed and those already employed. The "quality" of the qualification system is therefore the main driver for the spread of apprenticeships towards the adult population, and to reach these results an active participation of both institutional representatives at different levels and social partners is necessary. All them are called to collaborate for designing, implementing and improving a quality assurance framework, which has to be grounded on a periodical needs analysis, the definition and periodical updating of the references for the training, to be placed at the foundation of the qualifications system.

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