Comment by icehawk

It's not a matter of practical experience, it's a matter of gatekeeping.

The way an apprenticeship works is that the apprentice does the work, then the contractor signs off on it, then the government inspector signs off on it.

This obviously makes no sense, right? If the apprentice does work that won't pass inspection then it won't pass inspection regardless of whether an existing contractor looks at it first, so no one is being protected from anything by that. If they do work that will pass inspection then what non-protectionist purpose is there in forcing them to have a competing existing contractor sign off on it before they can have it inspected for real?

In theory the competing contractor could be supervising the apprentice while they're doing the work instead of giving them some work to do and then leaving them to it while they do some other work themselves or take a long lunch, but there is nothing to enforce that happening and therefore the expectation that it reliably does is a fictional academic reality inconsistent with real incentives.

Precisely. As someone who has done work in my home that has passed inspection, there’s a lot more to it than just taking a test. It’s the “how things are supposed to work” meets “how am I going to actually make this work” X factor that takes time and ultimately what people pay for.