Skills training in the informal economy, known as informal apprenticeship, caters to the skills needs of millions of young people in the Global South. While it predates the development of formal Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) systems, it was not until the ‘discovery’ of the informal economy in the 1970s that attention was drawn to this important system of training. Despite the importance of informal apprenticeship, it is striking that there has been a paucity of academic research on education and training and the informal economy this millennium. Whilst there have continued to be papers written by staff of international development agencies, academic accounts are now rare. This paper explores the role of informal apprenticeship in the human development of informal apprentices. It presents new data on informal apprenticeship and engages with earlier academic and international policy papers on informal apprenticeship, in an attempt to open new ways of theorising and understanding informal apprenticeship. © 2021 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.
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