Logbook
The logbook is a very important contributor to documenting the goals achieved by the apprentice during the apprenticeship. Pursuant to the Danish Law on Vocational Training, the employer must prepare apprenticeship declarations covering the apprentice’s training with the employer. These declarations must be signed and submitted to the college at the end of the apprenticeship.
In the logbook, these declarations are designed as assessment forms. They are intended to serve as a communication tool between the employer, the apprentice and the college. Properly updated and signed, the logbook can at any time give any of the three parties an overview of the apprentice’s progress. The purpose of the logbook is also to take stock of the skills the apprentice has already acquired and the skills that are yet to be acquired for use in the onward planning of the apprenticeship.
The construction industry wishes to simplify the work involved in employers’ completion of the statutory declarations. Thus, it recognises a completed logbook as documentation for each separate period of the apprenticeship and of the apprenticeship as a whole.
In order for an apprentice to finish the apprenticeship and to qualify to take the apprenticeship test, all parts of the apprentice’s logbook must be completed and signed.
During the apprentice’s final period at college, the school will check that the form in the logbook covering the final period of work experience has been filled out and signed by the company in a manner necessary to ensure the appentrice’s access to the apprenticeship test.
The National Trade Committee recommends that the logbook is filled out in cooperation between the apprentice and the employer’s designated person responsible for the apprentice.
The employer’s responsibility
The employer is responsible for ensuring that the assessment form in the logbook is completed.
The apprentice’s responsibility
The apprentice is responsible for ensuring that the logbook activity form is completed and that the logbook is presented to the college/tutor and the Local Training Committee when the apprentice attends college. The apprentice must also ensure that the logbook is brought back to the employer after each of the apprentice’s periods at college.
The National Trade Committee and the Local Training Committee at the local college are entitled to review the logbook on demand. The committees are also entitled to review the logbook in connection with the assessment of assignments at the end of each college period.
If the apprentice has not achieved the expected training level, the apprentice, the subject tutor, the employer and the Local Training Committee must jointly adjust and organise the remaining part of the apprenticeship to ensure that the apprentice achieves the skills targets required prior to the apprenticeship test.
It is possible to supplement the employer’s current work with the optional specialist subjects of the apprenticeship to ensure that the apprentice gains wide-ranging experience and more in-depth knowledge of the required skills. Optional specialist subjects may also be added as further vocational training modules of up to four weeks.
How is the logbook introduced?
Logbooks are issued by the college to all apprentices during their basic course at the college or similar training.
The Local Training committee at each college decides how the logbook is introduced to the apprentice. The Local Training committee also decides how and when the logbook is reviewed and processed by the committee and the college. Finally, the committee makes the rules for the submission of the log book at the start of each college period.
What are the employer’s educational responsibilities?
Once certified as an apprenticeship provider, an employer has also been granted permission by the National Trade Committee to train an apprentice. This means that the employer has agreed to offer the apprentice suitable practical challenges in the technical areas included in the subjects the apprentice is learning.
During college periods, the apprentice learns the theoretical side of the subjects which are put into practice during work placement periods.
We recommend that the employer organises the work to ensure that the apprentice works with and achieves the skills in the disciplines which the apprentice has been studying during the most recent college period(s) and in such a way that the apprentice’s college studies and practical training complement each other. The apprenticeship logbook contains the skills objectives the apprentice is to achieve during his/her apprenticeship.
Practical work is to be organised in such a way that the apprentice works at increasing levels of difficulty to ensure that the apprentice at the end of the final work placement period achieves a level that corresponds to the requirements of a fully qualified specialist.
During their apprenticeship, apprentices usually work within the technical areas they are studying. Apprentices may also work on other tasks that may be relevant and valuable to their training.
We recommend the creation of a training plan which describes the tasks the apprentice is to work on and the departments the apprentice will be rotating between. The training plan should state who is managing the apprentice and who the apprentice reports to on a day-to-day basis.