to blame Tony Blair for the lack of skilled workforce?

[dunkaccino]

In the 1980's only 15% of school leavers went into higher education leaving a good lot of people to become tradesmen/HGV drivers/butchers etc. Tony Blair decided in 1999 that 50% going to University was a great aim, which was finally achieved in 2019.

Now we have a lack of everyone useful - electricians, carpenters, fitters, engineers, butchers, drivers - coupled with a multitude of unskilled mickey mouse degree graduates who are of no practical use to anyone.

Covid & brexit have undeniably both played a part, but AIBU to think that Blairs idea was basically a bit shit and has left us lacking in the skilled workforce needed to run the country?

@mustlovegin

It always amazes me that people think electricians/heating engineers/plumbers are not academically inclined, you need maths, physics, you have to sit yearly written exams and do practical tests to keep your qualifications up to the latest requirements and be able to run your own business on top of all that

I agree. They are much more valuable than someone learning social studies or some other obscure subject which serves no purpose really

My father emigrated to the USA from Mexico and his actual job in Mexico was "professional musician". However, he learned, on the job, how to be a tradesperson on building sites (he also worked as a professional musician part-time too). He only went to school until age eight (yes, age eight, not year eight), so knew how to read and write, in Spanish, and basic mathematics. He had to learn English and more advanced skills for the two different trades.

He later owned his own two businesses: carpentry & owned his own musical group. He owned his own home, raised his family and lived a comfortable life. He HIRED people who had degrees in business, accountancy, law, construction management and degreed musicians and singers from esteemed music schools.

He may not have had experience or education himself but he was smart enough to outsource those who did.

I remember TB saying he wanted 75% of the school leavers to be above average.

It is possible he meant the mode (most common)form of average, but that would be pretty silly.
Median= middle so by definition can't be 75% above average.
Mean (traditional average) you could get that-but only if the bottom 25% sank really low, and I doubt he was aiming for that.

Conclusion: he liked sound bites and didn't care whether they made sense or not.

I suspect he either didn't do A level maths OR yes, he just didn't care really!

I’m glad I’m a bus driver. Mortgage free at 39, studying for a degree and my employer is throwing all kinds of money at us to work extra hours right now (as usual but the cash bonuses have gone WAY up since the shortage bit) I think getting people in jobs like plumber, HGV driver, carpenter to talk in schools rather than just the aspirational degree people about the realities of these jobs and skills, would be beneficial. We haven’t failed. None of my colleagues are struggling. I bet plumbers and carpenters are doing even better. Like a PP said, get the respect back for people doing jobs that aren’t in an office.

@MargaretThursday

I remember TB saying he wanted 75% of the school leavers to be above average.

It is possible he meant the mode (most common)form of average, but that would be pretty silly.
Median= middle so by definition can't be 75% above average.
Mean (traditional average) you could get that-but only if the bottom 25% sank really low, and I doubt he was aiming for that.

Conclusion: he liked sound bites and didn't care whether they made sense or not.

This exactly. They give out the same meaningless logic and sound bites in secondary school education too - “everyone must achieve the average grade or above!”. As with anything in life, a national distribution bell curve will always exist. There always has to be 50% of the population below average and 50% above average in anything - intelligence, attractiveness, physical ability, cooking ability, whatever. The curve can shift position along the x axis if the population as a whole gets smarter or dumber or the curve can expand or narrow if the population develops either more or less extremes each end, but the same distribution curve cannot change and the average of any given cohort will always be the same - 50% above it and 50% below it.

DH owns a construction company. There’s no shortage of 18/19yos qualifying in trades and by 21 many of them out earn university leavers of the same age starting their first job.
Unless you’ve done law or medical, a good plumber, bricklayer & scaffolder earns much more than a teacher and a nurse. I’m just using industry specific degree examples here.

Maybe don't get a degree. Train as a gas fitter. My DSS earns over £40k. He's 23.

@VivienScott I agree. They also earn better in most cases.

@RussianSpy101

Totally agree.

@FOJN

So if everyone just knew their place everything would have been fine.

That single sentence reveals the general lack of respect for skilled jobs. Becoming a plumber is "knowing your place" which is beneath those with a university education?

Why would you encourage people who may not be academically inclined to get into loads of debt to gain a qualification which has become so ubiquitous it won't necessarily give you an advantage in the job market. We need skilled workers as well as educated ones.

Exactly

Except, we are also massively short of university educated professionals as well, example, doctors.

@nancybotwinbloom do you need to be good at maths for that? Sounds interesting however my maths skills are awful

Blair is the same economically illiterate idiot who created a low pay labor market by subsidizing low pay with tax credits. Something that is now so deeply embedded within our economy that it suppressed skills growth further.

Medicine turns away highly qualified students every year. It's a different issue to the mass exoansion of lower tarrif courses.

[quote Simonjt]@UsedUpUsername You don’t seem to understand, he was only able to create his business because his degree has enabled him to gain five years of experience as an employee in a company that develops social media platforms. Without the degree he wouldn’t have the experience, knowledge, or vital business contracts.[/quote]
No I do understand. I know someone who started running social media accounts of small F&B businesses and went on to bigger things from there. No one cares about the lack of degree.

Now I can see that the office job was the precursor in yr example but developers often don’t need to have degrees if they have the relevant skillset. And if they have a strong portfolio—that’s what clients actually care about. No reason he couldn’t develop those skills outside of uni, in fact in his case sounds like the degree was a waste of time and just a box ticking exercise for HR

[quote Rivermonsters]@nancybotwinbloom do you need to be good at maths for that? Sounds interesting however my maths skills are awful[/quote]
To be a gas fitter. No I don't think so. Just thorough. Understand the gas process. How meters work. You should at least enquire about it.

He didn't go to uni for it. Think he may he an apprenticeship. But you should look into it.

Look at energy assets, sms, National grid, stark, they are the biggest ones to ask first. Good luck 🤞

may be mistaken, but did Tony Blair write yesterday's budget?
Was there anything in the budget other than 3p off a pint of draught beer, to make you think that anything is going to change soon?
What about for the past 10 years? Could anyone have been trained in a skill in that time?

@jgw1 Yes definitely. The heirs to Blair absolutely could and should have moved away from his failed policies.

OP never bothered coming back to the thread??

Blair hadn’t been PM in 14.5 years.

@Kendodd

Except, we are also massively short of university educated professionals as well, example, doctors.

Yes - because Blair and others pushed subjects that people pay for whilst restricting numbers of doctors, midwives and nurse places.

No, I’m so very grateful I had the opportunity to go to university.
My parents could never have afforded it for me and I’m the first in my family to get a further education, I was not encouraged to go to university.

I now work in the exact job I studied for in one of the health professions. (Not one of the ones that used to be funded).

In the 1980s the local joiner had an apprentice who he trained up (over years). But minimum wage, health and safety, insurance has put doing this out of reach as it's not viable.
All these employment laws have unforeseen circumstances. Plus people expect to own a house at a relatively young age (compared to when they start work) The apprentice mentioned above would have started work at 16 so by the time he was mid 20s could work for himself and afford a house. Making everyone stay on at school also has repercussions.

[quote Simonjt]@UsedUpUsername He couldn’t, as he couldn’t have gained employment in managing social media himself, without that employment he couldn’t upskill himself enough to then be able to open his own business and gain clients from links he had made.[/quote]
Nope sorry. Makes 0 sense. You don’t need a degree to open your own business or gain clients.

@bogeythefungusman

We need to value vocational studies the way they are valued in places like Germany, with their highly skilled and productive workforce.

This 100%! The Blair government did make the mistaken assumption that a service economy could offer jobs for everyone but the lack of investment in vocational education goes back much further than this.

Part of the problem is that there are far fewer MPs with a background in industry or manufacturing than in the past. Chi Onwurah (Labour) is a notable exception with her engineering background while Robert Halfon (Conservative) has a good record for on the need for good vocational education.

Unfortunately we have a ridiculous economy in terms of wage differentials. This makes it hard to shift career choices.

@sst1234 You are choosing to purposely misunderstand. So without his degree, how do you propose he would have gained a job that required a degree? Without said job he wouldn’t have been able to gain skills in his area of employment, he also wouldn’t have been able to gain contacts or business links, the links who switched over to his business very quickly enabling him to employ over 100 people in the first year of his business.