What does "apprentice" mean in Han Dynasty?

Generally, there are only 1 teachers and thousands of disciples in private schools, so it is obviously impossible to teach every student under the conditions at that time. Disciples in private schools can be divided into "apprentices" and "apprentices", and a considerable number of them are just nominal and do not come to be taught in person, which is called "apprentices". These people either taught themselves Confucian classics at home, or didn't learn them at all, just seeking the name of a teacher-student relationship, because this teacher-student relationship had an important social role at that time.