In the United States, there is no single set of apprenticeship standards that all employers and sponsors in the U.S. must follow when designing their programs.
The Registered Apprenticeship program is administered by the U.S. Department of Labor. In some states a representative of the U.S. Department of Labor works with employers or sponsors to develop and register their programs, while in other states a State Apprenticeship Agency plays this role. In addition, there are state-based youth apprenticeship programs as well as U.S. military apprenticeships.
While flexible, this system of independently developed and approved apprenticeship programs has some downsides, including potentially inconsistent program quality and increased start up times and costs for employers or sponsors. Also, other employers may be reluctant to accept Registered Apprenticeship as a valid credential if they can’t readily determine what was required of an apprentice to complete the program.
Competency-Based Occupational Frameworks (CBOF)
For those reasons, the U.S. Department of Labor has contracted with the Urban Institute to develop voluntary, consensus-based Competency-Based Occupational Frameworks (CBOFs) to help employers and sponsors develop, and apprenticeship officials evaluate, new apprenticeship programs. The CBOFs are developed in partnership with employers, sponsors, expert workers, educators, subject matter experts, trade associations, labor organizations and licensing bodies to ensure that they meet the needs of a broad range of companies and organizations and enable industry-wide acceptance of apprenticeship training.
Employers or sponsors who want to register a new apprenticeship program can use the CBOFs as a starting point. Although you’re not required to use the CBOFs, your program could get a more rapid review if you do use the frameworks, since they’ve already received support from the employer community. Employers or sponsors may customize their apprenticeship program to meet their unique needs, but the majority of the program must align with the CBOF in order to qualify for facilitated review. Job functions or competencies identified in the CBOFs as advanced or optional need not be included in the sponsor’s individual core program.
Although the CBOFs have been designed to support competency-based programs (see What is Apprenticeship?) they can easily be adapted to support time-based or hybrid programs as well.
Approved US Apprenticeships
For occupations that don’t yet have an approved CBOF, it may be helpful to consult apprenticeship standards used by state-based youth apprenticeship programs, the U.S. military or sponsors whose programs were previously registered by the U.S. Department of Labor (U.S. Civilian Work Process Schedules) or their State Apprenticeship Agency.
Approved US Apprenticeships
See approved US apprenticeships for:
- Wisconsin Youth
- US Civilian
- US Armed Forces
