Apprenticeship is a system for training a new generation of practitioners of a trade or profession with on-the-job training and often some accompanying study (classroom work and reading). Apprenticeships can also enable practitioners to gain a license to practice in a regulated occupation.

Most of their training is done while working for an employer who helps the apprentices learn their trade or profession, in exchange for their continued labor for an agreed period after they have achieved measurable competencies.

Apprenticeship lengths vary significantly across sectors, professions, roles and cultures. In some cases, people who successfully complete an apprenticeship can reach the “journeyman” or professional certification level of competence. In other cases, they can be offered a permanent job at the company that provided the placement.

Although the formal boundaries and terminology of the apprentice/journeyman/master system often do not extend outside guilds and trade unions, the concept of on-the-job training leading to competence over a period of years is found in any field of skilled labor.

There is no global consensus on a single term for apprenticeship. Depending on the culture, country and sector, the same or similar definitions are used to describe the terms apprenticeship, internship, and trainee-ship. The latter two terms may be preferred in the health sector. One example is internships in medicine for physicians and trainee-ships for nurses – and western countries.

 Apprenticeship is the preferred term of the European Commission and the one selected for use by the European Center for the Development of Vocational Training (CEDEFOP), which has developed many studies on the subject. Some non-European countries adapt European apprenticeship practices.

The system of apprenticeship first developed in the Late Middle Ages and came to be supervised by craft guilds and town governments. A master craftsman was entitled to employ young people as an inexpensive form of labour in exchange for providing food, lodging and formal training in the craft. Most apprentices were males, but female apprentices were found in crafts such as seamstress, tailor, cordwainer, baker and stationer.

Apprentices usually began at ten to fifteen years of age, and would live in the master craftsman’s household. The contract between the craftsman, the apprentice and, generally, the apprentice’s parents would often be governed by an indenture. Most apprentices aspired to becoming master craftsmen themselves on completion of their contract (usually a term of seven years), but some would spend time as a journeyman and a significant proportion would never acquire their own workshop.

In Coventry those completing seven-year apprenticeships with stuff merchants were entitled to become freemen of the city. Apprenticeship was adopted into military of the West African kingdom of Dahomey. Soldiers in the army were recruited as young as seven or eight years old, as they initially served as shield carriers for regular soldiers.

After years of apprenticeship and military experience, the recruits were allowed to join the army as regular soldiers. With a combination of lifelong military experience and monetary incentives, a cohesive and well-disciplined military emerged in the Kingdom of Dahomey. The modern concept of an internship is similar to an apprenticeship but not as rigorous. Universities still use apprenticeship schemes in their production of scholars:

Bachelors are promoted to masters and then produce a thesis under the oversight of a supervisor before the corporate body of the university recognises the achievement of the standard of a doctorate. Another view of this system is of graduate students in the role of apprentices, post-doctoral fellows as journeymen, and professors as masters. In the “Wealth of Nations” Adam Smith states that:

Also similar to apprenticeships are the professional development arrangements for new graduates in the professions of accountancy, engineering, management consulting, and the law. A British example was training contracts known as ‘articles of clerkship‘. The learning curve in modern professional service firms, such as law firms, consultancies or accountancies, generally resembles the traditional master-apprentice model: the newcomer to the firm is assigned to one or several more experienced colleagues (ideally partners in the firm) and learns his skills on the job.