Apprenticeship brokers who match a firm to a student and handle the paperwork, for a fee from the firm

A first step

Go to three medium-sized firms, a garage, a printer and a builder, and ask whether they would take an apprentice if someone found the student and handled the paperwork, and what they would pay for that. Then find students who missed a university place through a school or tuition class. One placement with a fee paid is the proof.

Who pays first

A small firm owner who would take an apprentice but has no time to recruit or do the paperwork, and pays a fee per placement.

What leaves today

Of the 130,000 who miss a university place each year, few find a trade, and firms lose workers they could have trained.

The idea and the mechanism are from the book. The first step was written for this site as a suggestion; if you know a better one, say so.

The test

Does it keep value that now leaves the island, or build the proof that lets somebody else do so?

The only test any idea on this site has to pass. The four rules that go with it are here.

In the book

• Ch. OneThe Letter That Says Yes and Means No
  177,588 qualified, 45,000 placed

More from cluster 16

• 321Employer-owned technical colleges: the hotels train the chefs, the port trains the planners
• 323Nursing colleges to the British and Australian standard, with the return clause built into the fees
• 324Electrician, plumber and welder certification centres whose certificates are recognised abroad
• 325English tutoring by video for the districts, at a price a family can pay, with a test at the end
• 326Tuition classes that publish their pass rates, so that parents can compare
• 327Coding clubs for schoolchildren in the districts, run by returning graduates

All 20 ideas in this cluster