How to get paid for being a ‘student’ – Kezia Dugdale

This week is Modern Apprenticeship Week, a great opportunity to showcase all the opportunities available to young people to gain a skill or trade.
Kezia Dugdale's attempts to make chapatis at Punjabi Junction in 2016 did not go well. Picture: Greg MacveanKezia Dugdale's attempts to make chapatis at Punjabi Junction in 2016 did not go well. Picture: Greg Macvean
Kezia Dugdale's attempts to make chapatis at Punjabi Junction in 2016 did not go well. Picture: Greg Macvean

Last year, I spent the day at Brakesafe garage on the Southside, where a super patient and attentive apprentice showed me how to strip and service a car.

He even let me take the wheels off and drain the oil. I can assure the car’s owner that everything was double and triple checked before that car was returned to you!

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This year, I spent it at the Punjabi Junction on Leith Walk where two apprentices showed off their cooking skills to me. I’ve been here before, trying and failing to make chapatis.

No matter how often I’ve tried it at home, I just don’t have the flair to get them to puff up in the middle.

Plus throwing them on to an open flame at the end of the process to “crisp them up” had an altogether different outcome in my flat. It just goes to show how wide and varied the opportunities for young people are. Increasingly, young people leaving school are choosing an apprenticeship over a university course.

They get paid whilst they do it and the chances of getting a job at the end of it all feel greater than a university degree does these days.