Good luck to those applying.
I don't believe it's an apprenticeship as such, just a way if getting cheap labour for a bit in ops .
And to be honest you could learn all you need to know ops wise for flying in a 12 he shift seeing what they do, so I don't deem it essential at all.
we had a lot of wannabe pilots at aeu in the ops dept, and they knew if they put up with the ****e in there and appallingly bad atmosphere, they'd get their dream shot at being a pilot on the line.
In one case , being in ops didn't help, he still couldn't land a 757 months later..