I have to disagree; apprenticeships work perfectly fine in IT.

Yes, technology moves fast and if one wants to stay current in the field, one has to keep learning.

But the fundamentals remain the same. It has been forty years since TAoCP was published for the first time. Has it become irrelevant? Hell, no. Has logic or maths changed because of this year's fad? Of course not.

Is four years a long time? Not if you want to give a young person a thorough education and a solid understanding of the craft, from the foundations up.

Instead, you know, of just train them to hammer out code in the currently most hyped language, without really knowing what they are doing and why it all works.

Teach concepts, not implementations.

Edit: Typo, standpoint clarification.