UK Education

[Quillan]

[quote user="Thibault"]quote user="Quillan"][ snip

I agree with 99% of what you have said except for the first sentence. It's not education its self but politicians who have done this with their 'fiddling' with it for political gain.  snip Quote

I think you'll find, Quillan, that there is a large proportion of those in education who have fought for 'parity of esteem' and all that goes with it, not just politicians. [;-)]

I was reading an article in The Observer this morning which is very interesting.  The Local Government Association has carried out some research.  It found that (nationally) 94,000 people completed hair and beauty courses last year, but the number of new jobs created in that area was only 18,000.  57,000 of the hair and beauty 'graduates' were aged between 16-18 - presumably unable to find a job.  83,000 young people were trained in media, journalism and PR, but there were only 65,000 vacancies in these areas.  However in construction, 123,000 people were trained for 275,000 jobs.  Only 40,000 people trained to fill 72,000 jobs in building and engineering.

So it would seem there is a fertile jobs market for some vocational areas.

[/quote]

Yes but they can't change the system directly, they need to politicians to do that.

Actually a lot of French girls down here do hair and beauty because quite frankly unless your willing to move to a big city there is no work. Mind you the proprietors see it as cheap labour anyway and once the girls have learnt a bit, enough to ask for a wage, they get rid of them and get some more trainees in. Taking advantage of young people in the work place is not to be restricted to just the British.

[Hoddy]

The british have always undervalued Engineers(who they see as people in oily overalls) and other practical skills compared to more purely intellectual subjects.

That strikes a chord Rabbie. I have a couple of engineers friends in their 40s, married to each other, who work for the same internationally known company. He was saying that when he started work there there were always several engineers on the board. Now it is almost entirely staffed by accountants and that while engineers used often to feature on the Honours List they are rare now.

Hoddy

[powerdesal]

The title 'Engineer' seems to be protected in Europe whereas in the UK anyone with a spanner can call themselves an Engineer. It doesn't help those of us who are ( were ) ''proper'' Engineers. It has led, and still leads, to a reduction in the standing of Engineering as a profession.