kwes kent woodland employment scheme
London
KWES Kent Woodland Employment Scheme is a charity established in 2012 to offer
employment (in the form of apprenticeships) to people seeking forestry
employment, but having difficulty finding it. Those difficulties stemmed most
often from lack of skills and experience, but were worse for those entering the
jobs market from an institutionalised life, for instance in the armed forces or
prison. KWES’s interest was mainly in mixed broadleaf woodlands – “boots on the
ground” forestry in woods managed on a commercial basis. KWES has never been
involved in arboriculture, (tree surgery or working at height), nor with hobby
or recreational forestry. The word “apprenticeship” signifies a three-way
contract, involving the apprentice, an employer and a training organisation. The
government’s “trailblazer” apprenticeship scheme set up in 2017 runs (and
provides a small level of funds) under rules administered by the Department for
Education. It envisages two-year apprenticeships, with the apprentice typically
working four days a week in the employer’s business, and being released for one
day each week to be taught more theoretical knowledge in the trainer’s
accommodation. Looking at this from the employer’s point of view, it gets the
services, (part time and part subsidised), of a worker who starts with no skills
or experience, but can be expected to gain these over the two year period.
“Employing” him/her is thus a pure burden at first for the employer, but its
apprentice should be more or less paying his/her way at the end of a couple of
years, especially if s/he is still quite young. However, the real value to the
employer is that its former apprentice, to be fully “employable” after
qualification, needs in most industries another, say, two years of experience –
and s/he can realistically only gain this in that same employer’s business,
(which explains how the government can say that apprenticeships “lead to a
continuing job”). It is the wage-rate that the employer pays his ex-apprentice
during this period which gives the employer real value from the whole operation.
