Adjusting Apprenticeships to Weather the Pandemic

Community colleges across the country have adapted operations to continue welcoming students during the pandemic, no matter the type of program offered. College-connected apprenticeships are no exception. Colleges, employers, and other apprenticeship partners took a variety of strategies to address safety concerns while also prioritizing apprentices’ progress.

On March 1, CELNA held a small convening of college-connected apprenticeship leaders who spoke to the challenges and successes the past year has brought them–as well as what they envision for the future in both policy and practice. Folks in the convening represented registered and industry-recognized apprenticeships spanning a wide range of industries: early childhood education, health care, business, and IT, in addition to fields like the building trades where apprenticeship has a longer history. Here’s what they told us about what they need as they navigate the next steps toward the light at the end of the COVID tunnel.

Here are a few key ways leaders told us they adapted their college-connected apprenticeships during the pandemic:

1. Pivoting to online RTI. Most community colleges pivoted quickly online in March of last year for all classroom-based instruction, including classroom-based RTI for apprenticeships. While colleges successfully shifted modalities at lightning speed, apprentices and other students often encountered barriers to tech-enabled learning, such as spotty internet access, needing to share devices with others working or learning remotely, or adjusting to asynchronous learning.
2. Socially-distanced hands-on RTI. It took even more creativity and flexibility to safely engage in on-the-job training during the pandemic. Hands-on related technical instruction relied on lower-capacity lab sections alongside an increased number of sections of some required courses. In our sister convening with community college leaders, we heard that colleges often used CARES resources to fund additional faculty time and facilities adjustment in hands-on learning to accommodate safety and social distancing protocol, much needed for CTE programs like apprenticeships.
3. Flexibility on OJT. Some apprenticeships gave apprentices the option to pause their progress if they did not feel comfortable engaging in on-the-job, in-person training. For example, a health care apprenticeship offered apprentices the option to pause or continue their OJT in a hospital setting as the pandemic set in. The majority of these apprentices chose to continue to to train and serve their community through their work at the local hospital, and only some apprentices opted to pause for the pandemic. These apprentices helped provide much-needed basic patient care while continuing to reach toward their career goals.
4. Variation in program activity. While some fields using apprenticeship to welcome new talent–such as hospitality and culinary arts–are largely on hold, others have flourished. One attendee noted that IT apprenticeships hardly skipped a beat in the pandemic, and in some colleges’ IT apprenticeships, enrollment actually grew over the year. Colleges, employer partners, and intermediaries are now considering how to transition from a program pause or extension toward a new normal.

Like all of us, college-connected apprenticeship leaders are eager to see the COVID-19 pandemic in the rearview mirror. But as we still need to adjust operations to prioritize safety, these practitioners’ ideas for adjustment offer a helpful look into how all parties working together to sustain college-connected apprenticeships have made it work this year.

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