Hey thanks for your comments guys,
djk,
You guys have the Institutes Of Technology over there too?!, our Polytechnics started rebranding themselves about 5-6 years ago to get a bigger share of the student dollar. [Linked Image]
And yes, the trainers here actively encourage female students to take on a Trade Course, but they are often lost to Business Management courses instead.
C-H,
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Sure, it's easy, if you choose that career when you apply for high school.
How does that work?, you'd have to pretty sure that you were going to "stick at it".
Lyle,
It sounds to me like NI has got a good system to ensure plenty of tradespeople in the future. [Linked Image]
Guys, this is my one pet peeve!.[Steps on to Soapbox]
We SHOULD have been doing something like this over here, 10-15 years ago and now we are feeling the consequences.
Now I'm not willing to get into a political debate here, but I think that the blame really has to be laid at the Government in 1990, that repealed the old Apprenticeships Act and brought in this really expensive and un-wieldly system that we are only just seeing the end of now.
When I left school in 1990, the word "Apprenticeship" was almost a swear-word, that's how I ended up being a Professional Firefighter, you just couldn't get an apprenticeship as anything at the time.
There is a phenomena here, that is called "The Brain-Drain", this is where our leaders blame our lack of Tradespeople on those moving overseas, taking thier skills acquired here, with them.
Everyone in any sort of Trade knows that the truth, is that, all of our Immigration policies are really warped and they just let Doctors and lawyers in and people with no qualifications at all, to live on our Welfare system.
[Right that's it, I'm off the Soapbox!]
Djk,
You had fake walls to work on?, we had to wire circuits in PVC conduit between mounting blocks on a 1m x 1m sheet of MDF on a desk!. [Linked Image]