Apprenticeship is the oldest system of training a new generation of practitioners of a trade, discipline, industry or profession with on-the-job training and often some accompanying study (classroom work and reading). Apprenticeship also enables practitioners to gain a license or certificate to practice in a specialised or regulated profession. Most of the training is done while working for a supervising agency – a company, a factory, a laboratory, et al. – which helps the apprentices learn their trade or profession, in exchange for their continued effort and work for an agreed period after the achievement of measurable competencies. Apprenticeships durations vary from industry to discipline and trade. People who successfully complete an apprenticeship reach the journeyman level of competence.
Apprenticeship programs include job shadowing, watching a real worker for a short period of time, and/or actually spending significant time at a job that would be complemented in academic classes or working at a real business, industry, factory or laboratory.