German/French style apprenticeship system for the UK?

The new government are cutting budgets everywhere and undoubtedly funding for training will be reduced. HCA recently responded to a consultation in which Government outlined a vision of employers and learners paying for training instead of government.

In fact the majority of training in the smaller crafts tends to be informal short courses paid for by learners already.

On Friday I hope to attend a meeting in York where I just heard a group of folk are discussing the possibility of setting up a system similar to the German and French apprentice, journeyman type training. It will be interesting to see how it goes.