This paper is a study of the recruitment to the first version of the International Journeyman Programme (IJP), a project to recruit and train young workers from the northeast of England for a craft and technician training programme in engineering organized by a French trade guild, Les Compagnons du Devoir (CdD). The initial version of the project was unsuccessful and the paper highlights the role played by UK state agencies and institutions in the recruitment process in the project's lack of success. The paper examines the strategic relevance of a model of French craft training to a UK firm, describes that system of training and development, and analyses the recruitment difficulties faced by the IJP organizers when they attempted to launch the programme. The study finds that key elements of the UK VET system have severe problems in delivering high-skills training, and that there are in-built structural barriers that limit the extent to which such training can be easily imported. © 2005 Taylor & Francis.
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