Thats the point we need more Apprenticeships and vocational course. Degrees are needed but not 60-70 percent of the nations students surely?Originally Posted by joebloggs
apprenticeships hardly exist any more.
and where will they come from andy if it's not thru uni ? do you mean the practical skills gained by many Filipinos here, who applied for a student visa to do a nvq 'working' in a care home while 'studying' at 'joe bloggs' college
you might not use the knowledge you gained from your degree in the job you do, but the employer knows at least you had the capacity to pass your degree, something some school leavers couldn't do.
everyone is different andy, so what if you end up as a manager at mc dons with your arts degree if that's what you want to do
What uni course should a plumber/sparky going on maybe later he or she may want to do a degree if they go in to managment but learning to write flash reports wont help them in the early days.
Before you say there are plenty of apprenticeships avaiable there are not.
Many of my managers and directors were apprentices or went to on some vocational course.
As I mentioned before when i'm involved in employing people from trainnees to highly specialised IT experts. Im not intrested in if they can pass an exam, I want to know what they retain from it, what skills they have. Could they manage people, can they manage themsleves.
Rarely do I find people to work in projects or ongoing operations. where handing in some paperwork and then rememebering facts and formulas etc for an exam are the required requirments. So while a indicator the person has some intelligence and what not. There is far more required.
A huge cost to our is finding people is retraining people once they are employed. I know how our engineering department before we started the extra testing had to constantly fill the gaps in new candidates basic skills and make allowances while they catch.
We had Electronic engineers with a bsc after their name who couldn't use test equipment, unable solder or perform hands on work in general! Compuer science gradutes who can't code the list could go on.
The degrees they do seem to try and cram into much and worried to much about teaching them how to aim for the top. They forget you need to move on need to in many careers do the basics correctly first. Also not evryone can be the leader. Everyone finds there level, sorry 70 percent of the youth of england cant all be managment surely?
So why dont they give them the skills to get going the rest they can learn as they go along as the theory for the managment side will be out of date or they will have forgotten how to write the long report.
Lets face Joe very few phills would come here degree holders or not if econmonic factors were not involved. As we both know many are highly skilled and qualified like you, I know some of them personally. But many do gain practical skills and experience then move onto nursing etc and stay in the UK or move on.
A lot of the people teaching staff and careers advisors seem to think anything but a degree is of no use. That they must always try and make the pupil feel good and manual work/engineering for example why do that. Why be a nurse when you can be a doctor. Also ways good to aim high but you need to be a realist and ensure they reach at least a basic level
Chucking them on a degree course and them either failling or that their degree mark so poor they wasted their time is crueler surely? Now they are three or four years behind their peers.
Plenty of school friends got to a certain level gcse, a level, btec diploma or hnd and they never needed a degree. Others took the trainnee or apprenticeship route and worked there way to a satisfying career.
Many have exceeded the ones who went the degree route.
No one soultion fits all
