Showing posts with label Clifford Barnes. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Clifford Barnes. Show all posts

Friday, June 28, 2013

British Farrier Training: College-Based Training Replaces Agency-Run Apprentice System

For as long as there have been farriers, there have surely been apprentices, because that is how the skills and knowledge were passed down through the ages. There was secrecy, and some would say there was magic. While in the United States, apprenticeships are free-form and unsupervised, in Great Britain they are part of a government program that charged an alphabet soup of agencies, colleges and organizations with running a modern training system based on an ancient tradition. 

They stock the truck. They sweep the floor. They're something left over from a Charles Dickens novel, and yet they are the future of the profession. Everyone was one, once.

They are apprentices. And their role in British farriery is about to change.