Education or Vocation

[Linford]

When I started out, vocational training was more easily accessable than HE (or so it seemed) back in the mid 80's. You could go down the job centre, and either get a job, or get on a waiting list to co and do a course which would give you skills to get you into a job at the end (I did the skillcentre route and got into engineering as a machinist), learned the business from the bottom of the pile, and then retrained into the offices on the designing side of things (not better or worse than the shop floor as they are very skilled out there, and that takes years to master but different).

Then it all changed, Maggie throttled manufacturing (or so it seemed), and declared that the country could survive by just offering banking services to the rest of the world.

Education, Education, Education became the mantra after the grey years of Major, and everyone (and their kids) were sold the idea that they could go to college, and come out with a qualification which gauranteed them a job where they'd earn a massive salary and never have to do a job involving manual labour again.

And then it all went a bit wrong and now there is a sizeable proportion of the people of employable age who are 'economically inactive'

Do we have to reinvent ourselves again to survive by looking to the past and training our youngsters to do manual labour (and be happy with that), or should we all become a nation of degree educated people which the nation may, or may not have the ability to offer gainful employment too as this is what made the country 'great' back in the day.

Is Education, Educatio, Education a failed experiment which should have only ever remained in the hands of the people who have gotthe ability to actually do well at it. There is a hell of a lot of people now who are flipping burgers with £30k-£40k of student debt who will never be able to find employment in their chosen field as they just didn't achieve anything of value in their courses.

 

[Norm]

Yes.

 

[Arch]

Bring back Polytechnics.

But only at the same time as somehow (how?) changing attitudes so that training in a manual trade is not seen as less important than getting a degree. When there's water pouring through your ceiling, someone with a degree in history is not going to be much help, and yet somehow those people are seen as more successful than plumbers.

There should be no shame in manual labour. Without litter pickers, and care home assistants, and shelf stackers, how would society cope? Too many people would be quick to complain if the bins weren't emptied, or the shelves were empty, but would consider such work beneath themselves or their children.

I also favour, as I've said before, a compulsory gap year (in effect, a non-military national service) between A levels and university - but with people not even applying for uni until after that year is up. In that gap year, everyone should a) have a job, or b) receive a basic allowance while doing a useful 'voluntary' task (or maybe get that allowance while doing an internship in business). I think too many people go to uni because all their mates do, and it puts off having to really decide what you want to do. A year out in the real world might well help those people to decide just what they want to do.

 

[Night Train]

I would certainly have done better had I not gone straight into degree study from A level's.
A chance to see what I could do and what I wanted to do before deciding on the course of study best suited for it.

Promotion of British creative manufacturing and engineering wouldn't go amiss either.

Real apprenticeships in industry would also be a good move as it should prompt investment in the future workforce and give younger workers value, self worth and self respect rather then 'rispek bling bling waves fingers in the air wears trousers around knees'.

 

[Paul J]

Sorry to hear you problem but I am in exactly the same situation, stuck and not sure which direction to turn. Go back to full time education and struggle to survive even more or try and compete for the slave labour jobs. Don't know about your area but mine is full of East Europeans that suck the place dry and push wages way way below a British person can bring a family up on. Thought about changing my name to something ending in Ski

 

[steve52]

education free for all for life, paidfor by reintroducing manufacturing? (its only an idear) but when a company move away for cheaper labour they do real harm to us, maybe we should then make them pay for the cost to us , of them making a little more profit?

 

[Linford]

education free for all for life, paidfor by reintroducing manufacturing? (its only an idear) but when a company move away for cheaper labour they do real harm to us, maybe we should then make them pay for the cost to us , of them making a little more profit?

I have seen many companies sell out to the Chinese, chasing profit before anything else. a chap I worked with went to work for a company which makes aircraft landing gear. The co decided to relocate his bit to China, and he jumped at the chance to go and work there for a couple of years training the Chinese up. They paid him well, but the money has long gone, he is back in the UK, and has been out of work for the last 9 months.

Raleigh did the same back int he 80's as well. This policy is so short sighted

 

[marinyork]

UK population 22-64 by highest qualifications % in 2010
Degree 25%
Higher Education 10%
A-levels 21%
GCSE A*-C 20%
Other Qualifications 12%
No Qualifications 11%

UK population 22-64 by highest qualifications % in 1993
Degree 12%
Higher Education 8%
A-levels 23%
GCSE A*-C 17%
Other Qualifications 15%
No Qualifications 25%

Source ONS study last year.

Just presenting these figures for people's curiosity. The reason the figures grew so rapidly is not just to Blair but that the %s going to university from the late 80s and 90s had been high and the % going to university in say the early 60s miniscule. So as an illustration 2010 would include someone who was born in 1946 and went to university around 1964 before the huge boom in universities. Let's call it 5% going to university as it was somewhere in that ballpark. As they retire/go over 65 their cohort from that year is replaced by one in the 00s where 40-50% in the 00s has gone to university.

Note not only the massive rise in degrees but also the huge shrinking of those who have no qualifications. It's also interesting that the other + no qualifications even in 2010 still makes up nearly a quarter of the workforce.

 

[Linford]

Interesting comparison MY

I find the dearth of jobs available to our home grown youngsters to be quite scary. The lost generation are living their days by signing on, spending the days watching Jeremy Kyle, and spending the nights playing on their X-boxes.

They pick up their Giro's and then look down their noses at the migrant workers in McDonalds and KFC whilst being unemployable themselves. I think the whole ethos is really wrong, and just storing up huge trouble which the gov is takign the blind eye approach over. There are also the ones who have gone through the education system, acquired huge debts and come out with nothing of value to offer an employer. Who's idea was it to offer degree's in Surfing, or Star Wars (FFS) ?
they were just selling these guillable people the idea they could dodge a real job whilst doing very little in college/uni to appease their critics.

 

[Arch]

They pick up their Giro's and then look down their noses at the migrant workers in McDonalds and KFC whilst being unemployable themselves. I think the whole ethos is really wrong, and just storing up huge trouble which the gov is takign the blind eye approach over.

I don't think the trouble is being stored up. I think it's out there now!

I don't know how you change an ethos. I suspect that some slippage is inevitable. Once upon a time, you got yourself educated in order to better your prospects, but also for the glory of education itself. Ignorance was looked down on. Then, you got education in order not to end up in a 'dead end' job. Lowly jobs were looked down on. Then, you got education to avoid being on the dole - dole was looked down on. Now, even being on the dole is not a issue for some people.

There will always have been some lazy feckless people happy to live off whatever they can blag for least effort. The question is, is that number increasing faster than is 'natural'? Is it just a feature of our kind of society that with the positives of welfare (anyone want to go back to workhouses for all and if you can't afford a doctor you die?), come scroungers?

 

[marinyork]

I just call it an instant gratification society. I know I'm not known for short and simple descriptions/explanations for things, but I think in this case it might be appropriate. That also includes employers who don't bother to train people up properly too in there.

 

[Linford]

I just call it an instant gratification society. I know I'm not known for short and simple descriptions/explanations for things, but I think in this case it might be appropriate. That also includes employers who don't bother to train people up properly too in there.

I worked in companies which didn't want to train the workers up as they saw them as a commodity, and not an asset. Train all your workers to a high standard, and you have to pay them all a good wage.

 

[marinyork]

I worked in companies which didn't want to train the workers up as they saw them as a commodity, and not an asset. Train all your workers to a high standard, and you have to pay them all a good wage.

Is that even true any more? The low pay commission disagrees. In many workplaces if you got a promotion you'd be paid 50p an hour more (or less in some cases). If you received what a company regarded as a lot of training you will likely earn not a single penny more.

 

[Linford]

Only going by the business I'm in. They will get you for as cheaply as they can irrespective of skills you can offer, but if you wanted to move sideways, they were happy to train you but pay you the same. The only way to up the pay for many is to move co's

 

[marinyork]

Fair enough Linford. Same in many places. If I got a promotion I'd be paid a few pence more. As a member of the lost generation it's not so much the pay that concerns me or several other things one could mention , but the poor conditions and Groundhog Dayness of it all (I'm in my third proper 'first' job and each one gets successively worse).