> Apprenticeship has been a successful training model for many hundreds of years.
Is this meant as a proof that however it's done now is perfect? There are many tweaks one can make to the model to make it less lopsided and still keep the fundamental apprenticeship model. I am willing to bet that if you look at how it's done around the globe there are many ways of doing apprenticeship where the power balance is different, and historically it's probably also been practiced in many different ways.
Apprenticeship is simply 1:1 training over some extended period. Of course, it can go well or very badly.
Focusing on the structure of that relationship and hoping that more bureaucracy will protect the most vulnerable PhD students from misaligned advisors just doesn’t seem to work in my experience.
The fundamental issue is the incentive structure. Without changing it you’ll just drive personal abuse further behind closed doors.
Is this meant as a proof that however it's done now is perfect? There are many tweaks one can make to the model to make it less lopsided and still keep the fundamental apprenticeship model. I am willing to bet that if you look at how it's done around the globe there are many ways of doing apprenticeship where the power balance is different, and historically it's probably also been practiced in many different ways.