A new nuclear programme needs thousands of skilled craftsmen, in addi­tion to engineers, such as welders, boilermakers, iron workers, pipefitters, construction labourers, millwrights, electricians, carpenters, insulators and heavy equipment operators. Hence the importance of vocational schools and apprenticeship programmes.

These specialists require specific training in quality assurance, safety and radiological protection, if they are to work in the nuclear field. The worker is required to achieve nationally accepted standards of competence in order to satisfy the vocational training requirement. The worker’s competence is assessed while observing his or her performance in various standard tasks, by assessing knowledge and understanding (typically by using oral and written questions), and by collecting other evidence about the worker’s competence.

Another approach is through apprenticeship programmes for young stu­dents leaving secondary education who gain, during a certain period of time, real work experience and some complementary nuclear training. The emphasis throughout this training period is on exposing the apprentice to as many of the different facets of nuclear work as possible, while ensuring that the learning process is fully supervised with respect to safety. While set standards are required to be met in order for the apprentice to successfully achieve a formal apprenticeship qualification, this can also be considered as human resources development, using this qualification as the first step in the process of building a successful career in the industry.