[Gllug] VACANCY: Junior Systems Support

[Hari Sekhon]

Richard Jones wrote:
> On Mon, Sep 07, 2009 at 02:56:30PM +0100, Hari Sekhon wrote:
>   
>> This is also the fault of decades of "education, education, education" 
>> culture with belief that getting a degree will entitle you to a good 
>> job, good money, good life etc... which turns out to bitterly not be the 
>> truth for the very latest generation who just get saddled with debt and 
>> not much else. The older generation for whom it was true, to which a 
>> friend of mine belongs and remembers it was a time when only 5% of 
>> adults went to university and that was the point. It was simply because 
>> you expected smart people to go to university and hence make it a quick 
>> way of separating the chaff from the wheat. Since that's no longer the 
>> case, it's still the older generation perpetuating the old myth and 
>> doing a disservice to the very latest generation who can easily come out 
>> of university and end up very disillusioned.
>>     
>
> Not quite sure what you're proposing as an alternative to this.  The
> days when people could get unskilled jobs as factory workers or
> labourers are long gone.  Machines replaced those jobs, it seems quite
> likely in future that robots will increasingly replace semi-skilled
> professions like nursing.  That we need to raise everyone's level of
> education looks pretty obvious from here.  Maybe broadening access to
> universities wasn't the right way to do it, but no one is coming up
> with any other suggestions.
>   
Work oriented training. We need plumbers, builders, electricians, 
medical staff, mechanics, lorry drivers, whatever etc....

Work backwards: look at jobs you want to get people in to, especially to 
fill gaps and reduce dependence on foreign labour or wish to compete 
with foreign countries. Determine what is needed in terms of skills to 
do that job, make a course/apprenticeship/whatever based on that and get 
people to go through it, market it as practical etc etc... exactly the 
opposite of what universities are doing basically. Learn for jobs, don't 
learn to learn and then be unemployed.

UK occupation shortage lists would be a good place to start... and then 
work backwards.

-h

-- 
Hari Sekhon
http://www.linkedin.com/in/harisekhon

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