The registered apprenticeship information system tracks each apprentice and gives you, at the beginning of the year, whether this is a new registration or a continuing registration. Then at the end of the year it tells you if this is somebody who has completed, dropped out, or is continuing on to the next year. The set-up is there I think for this data to exist.
There are other characteristics of apprentices that are reported there, and they're not all reported that well. Quite often there is missing data, and in some variables there's not enough data to do anything with because it's not reported for so many apprentices.
A way of encouraging employers to actually complete this thing I think would be useful. Maybe some credit if you actually send in the form with all of the boxes completed would be useful. Then, across apprentices, we could look at how some of the variations in their characteristics are related to their progress through the program, because we could link individuals to see how they do.
If we have an individual and we know his age, sex, race, and so forth, we can track. We know because of where they are what their requirements are, because we know the provincial requirements and how long they were employed for. This information would allow us to track individuals through, and I think do a much better job of trying to explain why some individuals complete and some don't.
At the moment, the survey is there. I just don't think it's completed well enough. Maybe adding a few more variables and questions to that survey that employers have to fill in would be a big start.