Skills shortage: ana American perspective

[Eric The Viking]

This arrived in my inbox this morning, written by a LinkedIn blogger:

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/wanted-harvard-skilled-jobs-jeff-selingo

It could equally well have been written about the UK (except our students don't pay off their loans at market rates!). I fear the difference is that in the USA, someone might actually take the initiative. Here successive governments, of all colours, just seem to want to waste money on unproductive schemes.

Meanwhile the march of the breeze block and Portacabin "universities" continues unchecked.

I think we should have (at least) two higher education institutes, dedicated to woodworking craftsmanship. There's an enthusiasm for double-barrelled names, so how about "Sefton-Charlesworth" and "Tribe-Savage"* for starters...

;-)

E.
Who started his degree at a good Polytechnic, and finished it at a slightly-better-than average university (on the same campus)

*I think the other way round might be problematic, although it might be quite descriptive when working some species.

[edit to fix punkuashun and splenin]

 

[Phil Pascoe]

Sums it up nicely, doesn't it?

 

[Eric The Viking]

Sums it up nicely, doesn't it?

Yeah, I thought so.

 

[No skills]

Could you expand on the breeze block and portacabin reference?, being a non higher education type I'm a bit slow on these things

 

[RobinBHM]

It could well have been written about the UK.

Going to university has, since the 70's become the post school option. But this has meant so many people doing degrees that are not vocational leaving new graduates without proper skills to start a career.

 

[Eric The Viking]

Could you expand on the breeze block and portacabin reference?, being a non higher education type I'm a bit slow on these things

Once upon a time we had Oxbridge (gleaming spires x2 presumably), and the rest of the Russell group, and then "red brick" universities, and oiks like me got to go to Polytechnics.

But Polys are no more (all now universities), and all sorts of other places have mysteriously become universities. I bet there's even one in Slough now -- Betjeman would be thrilled.

Since they're not gleaming spires nor brick, I assume they're breeze block.

Some must be in Portacabins as they appear to be a bit, er, temporary (there was one in London that went bust a couple of years ago, IIRC, leaving all its students in the lurch).

Call me an old cynic, but I'm really glad I don't work in recruitment - sorting out the wheat from the chaff these days must be hard. And seriously, when I think about the youngsters getting into serious debt for 'qualifications' in pointless subjects from almost worthless 'academic' institutions it gets me rather hot under the collar.

It's time the emperor was called out for indecency in public places. For example, meejah studies (wot I kno a bit about) has significantly more undergrads starting every year on courses in the UK than there are jobs in the industry. It's something like 3x the industry headcount. It's why TV production companies are often powered by unpaid interns shovelling the coal -- there's no need to actually employ runners when there's a huge surplus of desperate graduates out there trying to get a foot on the ladder.

Some of these places would serve their students better if they offered options in barista and cocktail techniques.

I'm really glad I'm not a teenager these days.

E.

 

[No skills]

Ok the mist has cleared.

Without touching on what you have said on courses offered (agreed mostly), I really strongly feel there's a complete lack of career guidance or education of what variety of work there is after someone gets out of school - virtually none.
I think the poor souls finish their basic education and have no direction or idea of what they want to do - then they get caught on the escalator of pointless or even useless uni courses to keep them busy until they fall into a job.

I myself had no direction coming out of school - went into a btec in ITA for a year as it was what expected as I was a computer geek, unemployed for 2.5 years - blundered into retail for 10 years and then stumbled into molesting containers for 10 years. Only now do I know what I should be doing but have waisted 20 years of my working life getting there.

 

[Eric The Viking]

Ok the mist has cleared.

Without touching on what you have said on courses offered (agreed mostly), I really strongly feel there's a complete lack of career guidance or education of what variety of work there is after someone gets out of school - virtually none.
I think the poor souls finish their basic education and have no direction or idea of what they want to do - then they get caught on the escalator of pointless or even useless uni courses to keep them busy until they fall into a job.

I myself had no direction coming out of school - went into a btec in ITA for a year as it was what expected as I was a computer geek, unemployed for 2.5 years - blundered into retail for 10 years and then stumbled into molesting containers for 10 years. Only now do I know what I should be doing but have waisted 20 years of my working life getting there.

I hear you, and I agree. I have far more respect for skilled people than for paper qualifications (even though I've now got one).

The other dreadful bit is the loans scheme - they come out with a near-useless bit of paper and a huge debt hanging over them.

 

[worn thumbs]

The other side of the same coin;in the nineties I had a meeting with a local business adviser as a prelude to becoming self employed.She asked me what would happen if I needed a trainee and how long it would take to bring them to a fully skilled level (at the time the "apprenticeship" vogue hadn't begun). When I said that about five years would do it with a talented individual her face spoke volumes-she clearly couldn't believe that "manual work" could possibly need that amount of training.

I suppose I understand in a way,when I left school I had enough GCE's to figure in the top 20% of the population by qualifications.Thanks to the political urge to send 50% of school leavers to university,I've dropped into the bottom half without losing any brain cells.And I get my hands dirty.

 

[Phil Pascoe]

There was a letter in The Times some while ago in which the the writer made what I thought was a very good point. He said that when "O" levels were introduced in the '50s they were deemed suitable for the top 20% of the population - now degree level education is deemed suitable for the top 50% of the population. Humans haven't changed significantly in 60 years - therefore something else has.

 

[No skills]

Yes I believe the goal posts have been significantly widened.

 

[AJB Temple]

This is an interesting and troubling area. As it happens I am an employer in the financial services industry, and over the last couple of years I have recruited around 50 young staff ranging from 18 to 25. Most are graduates because for every job we get a large number of applicants and there are a LOT of graduates on the market. This seems like a positive thing for an employer, but it aint necessarily so.

Most of these young people have expectations that far outweigh the opportunities available to them. When coupled with a sense of entitlement, it is problem recipe. Largely, they are not very well educated and over estimate their abilities and often their intelligence too. Typically they lack good written english skills, attention to detail and often numeracy. Work ethic ranges from weak to truly excellent and bears little correlation to degree, age or anything discernible. I have employed people with maths degrees who lack knowledge of probability theory that I did at A levels and who have a weak grasp of statistical analysis, calculus and so on that are the bedrocks of mathematical knowledge.

Degree class has suffered creep as have A levels. It is interesting that some of our best hires have not necessarily had the best degrees or the most seemingly relevant degrees. Personality, work ethic and drive count for a lot too.

We have tried developing an apprenticeship scheme too. This is more difficult than you might imagine and red tape does not help. I would not say it has been a success.

We have some fundamental problems with our education system, but the solutions are costly and require a long time to feed through. It is also a political and social minefield with the elitism versus equality issues and so on.

 

[No skills]

A lot of AJB's post rings with my opinion that regardless of qualification you simply need to start with a good employee. Basics like attitude, timekeeping and willingness/ability to learn are key, turning up late with a know it all attitude ain't cutting it.

If that person then shows the ability to understand the work and perform to the level needed then excellent! If not then move them on with a good reference at the end of their trial period and unfortunately start the process again.

Now I just need a new employer that agrees with me

 

[tomatwark]

A lot of people come out of Uni with degrees in things that used to be apprentice based training with college day release or night school and can't do the job.

Even degrees used to be done at night school, my father did his degree while working and then went to Uni full time for his PHD.

From a woodworking perspective I have seen a lot of people do full time courses and then try to work in industry only to find, that they know lots of theory but don't know how to do the job, and are a lot slower than their same age group who have gone down the apprenticeship route.

I had this discussion with customer last week, whose son wants to go into furniture making and advised that if he goes down the full time route to try to get some woodworking based experience in the holidays.

It may be he comes to us as an apprentice next year anyway.

 

[Eric The Viking]

Even degrees used to be done at night school, my father did his degree while working .

That's what I did.

Initially, I ran my own small business at the same time as a 'full time' course, then in yr 3 got a placement that turned into a job, so switched and finished at night school. My job took me all over the place, and that, together with three small children, meant it took me seven years to finish. I couldn't get to the graduation ceremony.

E.

PS: My (far) better half is a saint.

 

[worn thumbs]

Around here night school has withered to the point where little other than a handful of conversational language classes survive.The only vocational options seem to be floristry and book-keeping.Are the online alternatives delivering?

 

[Phil Pascoe]

I spoke for a while with a very experienced (well past retiring age) college chemistry teacher and she said she would advise any smart child that if the career they were aiming for didn't actually require a degree for entry (like medicine) that they should look for alternative ways of entering it, as in many professions the degree if needed could be obtained without much personal expense while working.

 

[Phil Pascoe]

On the subject of evening classes, my friend enrolled on one. He was informed that prior to his starting he would have to take a literacy test. He said he had ten good GCSEs, wouldn't that be enough? No, sorry, was the reply. What about four good "A" levels? No, sorry again. I don't suppose an MBChB is any good either? No, sorry. He had to take the literacy test.

 

[deema]

Universities are paid for bums on seats, too many not getting through is bad for business. When I did my degree, the day's before tuition fees, 82 of us started and 12 survived to the sit our finals without needing to resit a year. Today, such an attrition level would be suicude for a uni course. The result, well the same mix of kids as when I was youngster with the same ability just not the same grounding in the basics of their chosen profession. For me it was engineering, and when I ran an engineering department I found that after 1985 anyone who graduated in that profession needed to be trained when I hired them in all the really hard essential stuff the Uni had dropped!

I spent a few years as a part time lecturer at a Poly to supplement my earnings when the family where very young, and witnessed first hand the curiculum for the same course being dummed down every year until I could not in good consciousness continue.

The result is today, we simply don't have enough people with the knowledge and background to pass on the skills we once had as a country. It won't be long before we have to send students to other countries to gain the necessary knowledge. E.g. We have lost the knowledge base for high voltage systems the back bone of our electrical distribution network and rely on foreign companies to build / develop our network. (I was originally an electronics engineer)

To be a joiner (fixing inside a building as opposed to carpenter) used to be a five year apprenticeship with two nights at college (1950~1970 era), there are to my knowledge no such courses / internships available. The skill of how to make a continuous ballistrade and the maths behind it have been assigned to history books.

 

[Phil Pascoe]

Agree totally. (btw - conscience, not consciousness?)