Hundreds of rail industry apprentices are set to stay on track and complete their trade thanks to a partnership between BUSY At Work and Rail Skills Australasia.

The ApprenticesOnTrack program offers free mentoring support to ‘at risk’ apprentices working in the rail sector.

Under the scheme free structured mentoring support will be given to 820 young apprentices during the first year of their apprenticeship when they are most at risk of withdrawing.

Rail Skills Australasia chief executive Paul Daly says mentoring is the lifeline the industry needs to increase current apprentice completion rates and BUSY’s mentoring program is proof that this approach works.

“There are currently 5000 apprentices working in the Australian rail sector and astoundingly only about 50% complete their qualification and progress into trade qualified rail industry workers,” Paul says.

“If the industry doesn’t address these completion rates we won’t have enough workers to meet our demand over the next 10 years.

“The work to be completed in the rail sector is estimated to exceed $15bn. In order to meet this demand, the Australian rail industry would need approximately 7,000 to 15,000 additional workers over the next three to five years.

BUSY’s mentoring program has been tried and tested across an extensive pilot program in which 90.83% retention was achieved from 1260 apprentices involved.

“The industry can’t ignore these figures and neither can the country,” Paul says.

BUSY At Work chief executive Paul Miles says supporting apprentices is critically important to supply the next generation of skilled tradespeople to the rail industry.

“I can cite a whole range of cases where mentoring has made a significant difference to whether an apprentice stays on or leaves their apprenticeship,” he says.

“Young apprentices struggle with the things we take for granted. This can be as simple as travelling to work or their training provider, reading a bus timetable, managing their personal budgets, keeping up with the theory and even the best way to approach workplace issues.

“It’s the age old problem that a tech-savvy teenager can’t always talk to his or her 50-year-old supervisor. Having a mentor as a sounding board is often all they need to keep them from walking away.”

Funding for ApprenticesOnTrack comes from the Australian Government Department of Industry, Innovation, Climate Change, Science, Research and Tertiary Education through the Australian Apprenticeships Mentoring Package.

The rail industry covers civil infrastructure, engineering, train crews, mobile plant operators, administration, network controllers, rolling stock manufacture and maintenance, Apprentices required from skill shortages are electricians, carpenters, welders, metal trade workers and fitter and turners.