[Gllug] VACANCY: Junior Systems Support

[Richard Jones]

On Mon, Sep 07, 2009 at 03:23:04PM +0100, Hari Sekhon wrote:
> 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.

Realistically this is a risky proposition.  So you identify that (say)
lorry drivers are in demand, and start training youngsters to drive a
lorry.

Trouble is that at age 16+ people have the most plastic of brains, and
you really want to be giving them general education (the skills to
learn how to learn).

Because when they come to be aged 40 or 50, and lorry driving is no
longer an occupation that exists (out of the jobs you listed above,
driving a lorry is something a computer *will* be able to do better),
then you've got a workforce who don't have the ability to learn to do
something else.

Rich.

-- 
Richard Jones
Red Hat
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