Airsupport. I don't think an apprenticeship is any harder now, than it was when my father completed his five year indenture over eighty years ago. However in a contemporary world today's apprentices are under different socio-economic pressures, resulting in successful completion as difficult today as it was back in your days.
Australia's problem is a critical labour shortage and so many competing career options.
Yes it is weird how things change over the years, when I was at high school everyone decided what field they would like to do and went and found a job (career) in that field, or went on to higher education. I actually HAD to leave high school at Intermediate Certificate as it was called (year 10) or I would have been too old to do the Apprenticeship, which was what I wanted.
Some time back when my Children were in high school, it was more a case of take any job you can get, even if you completed high school, and even Uni.
Now it seems to have gone full circle back to where it was, where there is a labour shortage and people can pick and chose again.