On the face of it I agree, there are plenty of other things he could be doing until he is,say, 16. However he will probably be well looked after & if he's happy ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ . I've heard of similar before, sometimes it works and sometimes not. The important thing is that he isn't pushed to do what he doesn't want to do, if he hates it he can drop out.
His dad says they don't care what he does as long as he's happy which is nice.