| I think the drive to get so many people to go to University was misguided. It rather overlooked the point that not everyone is academically inclined. Proper indentured apprenticeships have all but disappeared, just as daylight has started to dawn that highly practical skilled people are needed for the sake of the economy. We need builders, bricklayers, electricians, engineers and on and on, so they have to be able to access training. Another daft idea is that even they are expected in many cases to have attained GCSEs in specific subjects, just because they may not be able to do that does not mean that they lack the practical skills to be good at their chosen profession, we lose so many aspiring qualified tradespeople like this and for what? Lots of things can be learned on the job, including the way maths for example fits, and how to use it, so that it makes sense for them. We also lost our Technical Colleges that provided the back-up knowledge and preparation for the qualification exams. We need to reverse this and treat vocational education with the same importance we attach to University entrants. |