They should bring apprenticeship back for specialist employment as software development, system administration etc. I have friends in the Melbourne area that went through the apprenticeship program for motor mechanic, plumber and carpentry who have done pretty well for themselves.
Although the skills learned are very different, but conceptually it should work in a similar manner.
What I'd like to see is some manner of On The Job Training.
I mean anything at all - the tiniest little crumb would make my whole fucking day.
At Knowmed Systems, I was paid to read a book then write practice Smalltalk code for my first week. My second week I was working productively, my third week I was just as good at Smalltalk as most of the other coders there.
For the last fifteen years though I am commonly told that the employer wants "someone who can hit the ground running".
The long-term effect of that has, by now, resulted in NO ONE having the ability to hit the ground running. That is one of the real causes of the perceived yet largely fictitious shortage of software engineers.
It wasn't really until after the Dot-Com Crash happened that anyone ever expected ME to hit the ground running.
Before that, while I was generally expected to be qualified, I was regarded as so-qualified because I learned how to write FORTRAN Computational Physics code during my Physics studies. I only had just one CS algorithms and data structures class, however it was quite a good class.
My actual experience is that I really don't need to know a whole lot more than stacks, arrays, linked lists and binary trees, as well as the standard library routines that operate on them.
I think graphs are just dandy but I can't really say I've ever needed to use a graph on the job.
Yes I am very intrigued to study sorting algorithms as well as to puzzle over various ways the I could beat QuickSort - but in my actual workplaces I just call the C Standard Library qsort().
Your profile says you have 26 years of experience, I would certainly expect someone with half that much time in the profession to hit most grounds running.
Although the skills learned are very different, but conceptually it should work in a similar manner.