I've been asked to keep my comments short, and I'm much faster in French than in English, so I will switch to French right now.
I worked on a study on the differences between apprentices who complete their program and those who abandon it. You heard a little bit about the context previously. There is a considerable increase in the number of registrations in apprenticeship programs. However, a large number of these apprentices do not complete the program. We see dropout rates in the order of 50% and 60%.
The first finding was that the groups who drop out are generally speaking similar to those who abandon their studies in the traditional school system. They are the apprentices who have a physical handicap, are immigrants or have younger children. They are all more inclined to abandon the program than the others.
Another very important factor is the level of education of the students before they undertake the apprenticeship program. Those who have a higher level of schooling, who have a high school diploma, for instance, are much more likely to complete the program.
Age is also a factor. Earlier, we were saying that 25 is the average age of those who begin apprenticeship programs. I would like to add one thing. Over half of apprentices begin before the age of 25, but several are older when they begin. And so the average is 25, but the majority of them begin at a younger age. The younger they are, the more likely they are to complete the apprenticeship program. And so we would like to see them start at a younger age, but not too young. Indeed, the number of years of schooling they have before they begin their program is important.
When we examine the length of the program, that is to say the time they spend in the apprenticeship program, we see that there are a lot of dropouts in the fourth and fifth years. A lot of them finish the fifth year but afterwards, there is a considerable increase in the number of those who leave the program. It is important to keep the programs relatively short if we want to promote their completion.
We also examined the importance of support networks. We did not find that having parents or other family members in the same trades had a notable influence. However, if the apprentice does his program with a few other colleagues at the same time, he is much more likely to complete his program.
We see that the apprenticeship programs that have technical components also have higher success levels.
Finally, the apprentices who do their practical training period in a medium or large business are more likely to complete their program than those who do their practical training in small businesses.
Thank you very much.