Apprenticeships? Hidden exploitation..

I strongly feel apprenticeships get such a better reputation than they deserve. I mean the fact is people seem to think it is ok to get around £50.00 a week for 40 hours work?

I can understand it in some proffessions but the majority I just see it as a way to pay people little and exploit them. I know someone who is on an administration "Apprenticeship" and gets paid around £50.00 per week or something similar to learn something she even admitted doesn't need an apprenticeship. Just a snide way to rip school leavers off and exploit them by paying them extremely little. I also saw Tesco customer service or retail assistant apprenticeship schmes and thought this is terrible as they could easily learn that and they're just getting ripped off on like £1.50 per hour...

No doubt with the school age raising to 18 (for people to be in education or training) and and people not allowed to work at, for example supermarkets when they leave as this is not counted as "training" they will just work at the same places but go on an apprenticeship and do the same thing only get a heck of a lot less for it and maybe do some BTEC on the side to stop them from seeing the exploitation. No doubt employers will love the school age raising so they can exploit 16-18 year olds in particular. I could also see other companies thinking this is a good idea due to the fact there are many highly qualified people who havent got jobs to match these I could honestly see some kind of "graduate apprenticeship scheme" which makes my heart week a little as when people graduate with 9K per year tuition fees, living costs probably 50K in debt or maybe more they may end up on £50.00 per week. Disgusting.

Anyone else agree?

I Decided not to go to college and get an apprenticeship after school. Big Mistake. I'm not an idiot and I went to private school (Im not up myself!) and got several A's and B's. I got an apprenticeship with an IT company near Middlesbrough.

It became obvious from day one that I was being used for ony £2.50 an hour. I was doing very boring and repetitive work and was basically treated like ****. The company basically threw me on the first NVQ course they could find which bore little relevance to my job. I hate every minute of it but recently worked up the courage to tell them what I think of them and walk out. This was like water off a duck's back. They easily found someone to replace me and that appears to be the end of it.

This was really frustrating and it is not just my apprenticeship - Ive heard many other stories and I think it is disgraceful. I shall never use it again. I'm not particularly left wing but believe that this kind of exploitation should not be allowed.

I am not saying that there are NO apprenticeships which actually care, but it does appear that the low wages are the main incentive for using the system but this really should not be the case.