To be a bit pissed off with this attitude..

[HulaHooperStormTrooper]

Watching a debate on channel5 about career colleges and the attitude toward vocational education and the children who will attend them is seriously rubbing me up the wrong way.

Essentially the attitude seems to be that only poor, stupid and unambitious children coming from less able homes will end up in these career colleges learning trades where they will become (their words) the drones of society..

When did it become such a bad thing to have a trade? Why is the choice to arm yourself with a skill instead of a university education (which at the moment doesn't seem to make having a career any more likely) seen as a negative?

I have a 12 yr old who has never been academically minded but rather enjoys working in a practical way (he loves to cook more than anything) and I think he would thrive in this kind of place whereas my daughter would work far better in an academic environment. This doesn't mean I have tutored him any less than her, it also (in my mind) shouldn't make his choices and his career any less valid than hers.

AIBU?

that is not to say that you can't go to university later on when you have a career behind, a solid reason for going and qualifying in something and assurance that a) you will improve your salary by doing so and b) you won't need to sink yourself into 30k of debt to do it.

i just think the do it for the sake of it at 18yo game is a dead end.

If I could redo my life, I would learn a trade. Would be raking it in by now!

swallowedAfly I know someone (An engineering graduate themselves) in Scotland, where fees are still paid by government, who encouraged their kid onto an industrial training apprenticeship.

The earning whilst learning in the most up-to-date atmosphere with the firm you'd be asking to employ you as a grad anyway, makes it a good way in. The possibility of progression to management is there long-term.

I think it is good to get an employer investing in YOU, rather than investing time and foregoing earnings in the hope you'll be the lucky graduate they pick aged 21.

I think you are right, I don't know any poor electricians/plumbers etc!

I really regret going to university (and I got a 2:1 from a decent one) and wish I'd learnt a trade instead.

Dd's previous school, where she did her A levels, wouldn't countenance anyone saying they didn't want to go to uni. She had to go to so many compulsory university days. I brought it up at parents' evening and was told they had to encourage her to use her brain . I also asked about if they'd be giving any advice on other qualifications and apprenticeships but they did nothing at all - hopeless.

Bloody hell, some Of the most comfortable (money) folk I know are there because of their trades! A builder with a massive self built house, a salon owner with multiple businesses, all from good old fashioned hard work.

I find it so ridiculous that this attitude persists. The technical skills should never be undervalued. Better a modern apprenticeship than a degree in Meja Studies. And just because someone does a so called unskilled, menial job does not make them a 'drone' - how vile to think like that. Two of the best read and knowledgeable people I knew in childhood were our 'dustman' and a market gardener neighbour.

Christ, the richest people I know are plumbers, electricians and builders!

Skilled trades people are the new middle class.

I agree, I hate the focus on uni meaning better.
In certain fields yes but I work in a high street retailer and the bulk of our staff have degrees. A degree ti be a shop assistant? (Not slating shop assistants, I bloody love retail)
My son will not go to uni even though he loves architecture etc and would like a job Le that, he is not academic enough. He is same age as ops dc and also has a love of cooking and has already looked into the catering course at our local college.

I think it comes from this ridiculous idea that there should be a 50% target for university and an equally ridiculous idea that being "academic" means you are more intelligent than someone who is vocational, which is a load of bollocks. When I got my place at university (in the early 1960s) I took a deliberate decision not to go as the employer whom I had pestered to give me a summer job (journalism), which I knew I wanted to do anyway, said I would be no more use at 21 than I was at 18, but if I wanted to stay on he would give me a permanent job. I did stay on and found it far more useful and enjoyable getting some real life experience than the fairly typical one for a 1960s' student of sitting around putting the world to rights with the benefit of zilch world experience and lots of cannabis.

I did my degree in my late 20s when my children were small (external degree part-time) and for me it was the best decision I ever made.

A lot of people thought I was mad as in those days only 10% of young people went to university so degrees were really worth something then. Now diploma disease means employers are demanding degrees for something that really only requires A levels or today's equivalent of O levels.

Come the apocalypse, we shall find the builder, the electrician and the plumber a damn sight more useful than the graduate in media studies (I say that deliberately as a former journalist!)

I hadn't even thought of the apocalypse, good point! Mind you the Doctors will be useful..

I think some people are misunderstanding the word "drones". Drones are the worker bees who get things done and build society. Isn't the point that we will need these people and so we need to make sure we have enough trained people?

I suppose you had to have watched the programme to appreciate the sneery way in which the term was used. Seriously, the presenter may as well have held his nose as he said it..

Yeah this sort of thing pisses me right off- and I teach in a University. There's nothing wrong with being practical and it's time we got out of thinking that everything must be studied to be of any worth. Sometimes you just have to get on with it!

I've seen loads of kids just frittering away their time and opportunity doing something they weren't that bothered about, largely because it was clearly the 'done thing' to go to university, mummy and daddy expected it and/or all their mates were going so it must be ok, right?

For a lot of them it would have been far better to take a little time, do a bit of paid work, do a bit of growing up and then figure out what to do with themselves. Instead they got on the conveyor belt to graduation (and some of them fell off). Such a waste.

You can go to university and hopefully use your degree for a job, but a proper career training you WILL get a job. That pays decently as well usually

As my dear old nan would say "There is more than one way to skin a cat lass"

Nowt wrong with a bit of hard graft.

High schools, both state and private, where I live (Australia) actually have vocational studies.Students can opt to learn mechanics,hairdressing,carpentry etc.
Some of the bigger schools have vocational colleges attached.
It is an all round excellent idea.

Wasn't it good old tony Blair that did away with the Poly'sPoly'sand apprenticeships as I remember them, wanted something like 50% of all children to get degrees?