The problem is the wages are not very good, the better option would be transfer to physiotherapy, but that entails starting again, despite much shared knowledge.
Skills Shortage Will This Story Ever End?
- Thread starter bluebell
- Start date
- Location
- Carmarthenshire, West Wales
every year we used to train one or two sports therapists as bricklayers/carpenters.
- Location
- Co antrim
My younger brother used to talk about goin to uni, i told him to wise up a bit and go get a trade of some description. Now hes for goin to tech when he leaves school to learn to do a proper job
- Location
- Carmarthenshire, West Wales
my daughter said the careers service was not good, she wished they had told her what career opportunities were available after her degree, she is now re training as a nurse (which she did say she wished she had done when she left uni)
Exfarmer
Member
- Location
- Bury St Edmunds
I think Blairs idea was good, the polytechnics were in the main poorly funded, some were doing a good job , but even then the qualifications they handed out , were treated with respect by few employers.
He was trying to create the German model here, where , asI understand it most kids get a degree in something whether it is mathematics or tyre fitting. However these new “Uni’s” took on all manner of air and graces with Southside Poly teaming up with Northborough tech college become Westhampton university. Quickly dropping the bricklaying, basic car maintenance, haidressing etc in favour of sports therapy, media studies, and various other quack courses.
Then they borrow large sums on recruiting drives and even open offices in countries like China, Vietnam, India, knowing rich students from these countries will pay a small fortune for a degree from an English Uni, with a nudge nudge wink wink that for a suitable donation to funds a first will be a certainty.
Then a certain new government despite support from a party who guaranteed if they got to power to remove the then £3,000 a year allowed all Uni’s to charge up to £9,000 a year in the belief only the very best ie, Oxbridge Imperial Manchester etc. would charge that for a proper degree. Instead they all piled in and those in control,awarded themselves some very high renumeration for the hard work they had put in
Tubbylew
Member
- Location
- Herefordshire
Folk have been warning of this since I was in school twenty summat years ago, all the kids that messed about in lessons got to do construction nvq's while the rest of us got to do quadratic equations. Hens have come home to roost.
Exfarmer
Member
- Location
- Bury St Edmunds
Careers advice has always been very patchy, I and many other commentators have remarked that when you say you want to go farming, the advice has been to find something better.
I do wish I had been pushed towards going to Uni but then we had Newcastle and I believe even Oxford offered courses in Agriculture ( we are talking an aeon ago
)
- Location
- Somerset UK
Worst prime minister we have ever had, he never will answer for any of his f**k ups, the slopey shouldered teflon coated slime ball
- Location
- Carmarthenshire, West Wales
Son worked as a bricklayers labourer for the summer before A levels, he said it was much harder work than farming, as on the farm there are days and days on the tractor, or on the quad bike checking animals, so he said it was good to work the summer, as it persuaded him not to become a builder, he did say, if he was to work on site he would want to be an excavator driver (which to be fair often tends to be farmers sons).
I remember visiting a roofer on a day like today, and the carpentry lecturer in college saying he would hate to be a roofer out in all weathers in the winter
I remember visiting a roofer on a day like today, and the carpentry lecturer in college saying he would hate to be a roofer out in all weathers in the winter
taking this further, shouldent some of these highly paid university chancellors, many earning over , £200,000 per anum with good pensions on top? be brought to book on some of the very poor uptake, or jobs that pay ? that many of their graduates either have to settle for or cant get a job at all, because to many are chasing the few jobs available ?
- Location
- Carmarthenshire, West Wales
some school careers teachers were brilliant, I remember having a phone call from someone in Sept, asking me to find a job for boy who had left school 3 months earlier (which I did, and he became a plasterer), however, Careers changed and started to insist we posted all vacancies on their website (which was a very laborious job) and then we started to get applicants from all over the country, where as I wanted an applicant from within the van route to pick up, so in the end I gave up using their system.Careers advice has always been very patchy, I and many other commentators have remarked that when you say you want to go farming, the advice has been to find something better.
I do wish I had been pushed towards going to Uni but then we had Newcastle and I believe even Oxford offered courses in Agriculture ( we are talking an aeon ago
- Location
- Carmarthenshire, West Wales
and be paid a performance related element of their pay, on retention rate of their students
kiwi pom
Member
- Location
- canterbury NZ
Labouring on a building site is a s**t job, the money isn't that good and whether you work or not is very weather dependant. Not surprised people don't like it, its not a particularly secure job.
There's a lot of people on here who don't do these jobs demanding to know why no one wants to do them. Perhaps they should have a go?
I know lots of folk that went to university and have done VERY well since they left.
- Location
- Shropshire
But there is a shortage of Sports Therapists ! No.3219 on this list...
There's also a shortage of Amusement arcade ownersBut there is a shortage of Sports Therapists ! No.3219 on this list...
toquark
Member
I actually see the skills shortage as a good thing. There will finally be a rebalancing in the economy and labour force. Yes the problem should have been addressed 20 years ago and it will take 20 years to fix.
But it offers young people a very competitive alternative to the shrine of higher education (and I say that as a uni graduate). £50k debt and a job for £25k as a "manager", or a paid apprenticeship, zero debt and into a £50k job as a builder or wagon driver? I strongly suspect a lot of young people will be reassessing their options, and well they should.
But it offers young people a very competitive alternative to the shrine of higher education (and I say that as a uni graduate). £50k debt and a job for £25k as a "manager", or a paid apprenticeship, zero debt and into a £50k job as a builder or wagon driver? I strongly suspect a lot of young people will be reassessing their options, and well they should.
Frodo
Member
- Location
- Scotland (east)
Most of whom will have grown up and have transferable skills, which will make them good at whatever trade they end up in.
I know others disagree, but my observation is the 16/17 year old apprentices struggle, in a fairly brutal work environment, the old jokes of asking for a long stand etc. Persist. There is an element of employers viewing them as cheap labour and as a generalisation the main thing they learn is how to sit in a van and have a fag break.
The mature apprentices just have more life skills.
I would imagine a sports therapist course would cover the basics of keeping healthy, avoiding smoking, drinking in moderation, looking after your back, team management and motivation skills and as a bonus (but possibly not) a bit of business management all skills which determine the success of a self employed tradesman far more than the ability to sweep the yard and keep out of the bosses road.
We have five kids between us, the three stepsons all do practical jobs, ones a dry liner, one a scaffolder one a mechanic with proper three year indentured apprenticeship via a firm that does all the armies kit including an hgv licence, all earn really good money, my son works in marketing, does longer hours than two of the others and high stress job, lost one job during the pandemic but got a better one but I always think he is the vulnerable one to unemployment, daughter trained as a dental nurse but is a mum now and helps her husband who sells jewelry and has just gained a personal training qualification.
The last 20 months has shown who the world needs and it's not office jobs, the trouble is those who set the value of jobs are the "clever and educated " ones.
My view is to take the stance of f**k the idiots and do what's best for yourself and family.
- Location
- Limousin
I think Blairs idea was good, the polytechnics were in the main poorly funded, some were doing a good job , but even then the qualifications they handed out , were treated with respect by few employers.
He was trying to create the German model here, where , asI understand it most kids get a degree in something whether it is mathematics or tyre fitting. However these new “Uni’s” took on all manner of air and graces with Southside Poly teaming up with Northborough tech college become Westhampton university. Quickly dropping the bricklaying, basic car maintenance, haidressing etc in favour of sports therapy, media studies, and various other quack courses.
Then they borrow large sums on recruiting drives and even open offices in countries like China, Vietnam, India, knowing rich students from these countries will pay a small fortune for a degree from an English Uni, with a nudge nudge wink wink that for a suitable donation to funds a first will be a certainty.
Then a certain new government despite support from a party who guaranteed if they got to power to remove the then £3,000 a year allowed all Uni’s to charge up to £9,000 a year in the belief only the very best ie, Oxbridge Imperial Manchester etc. would charge that for a proper degree. Instead they all piled in and those in control,awarded themselves some very high renumeration for the hard work they had put in
Agree, the Poly's degree awarding powers were monitored and controlled by a single central body (CNAA) which guaranteed a degree from one polytechnic was of a similar standard to another. Which is definitely not the case with university degrees. Unfortunately, rather than allowing the CNAA to monitor all degrees when the poly's were turned into universities, it was done away with.
dowcow
Member
- Location
- Lancashire
Really? Only a handful are trained every year, one of my sons being one, so I find your figures rather excessive.
I think my cousin did that... or maybe physiotherapy. He works for a football club. I think another farmers son around here did a P.E. degree, but he said it was just a bulls**t degree because the job he eventually wanted to train for had a degree as a requirement, and it seemed like a degree that would be fun to do.
I think that's the point that was originally being made. Many degrees aren't training for a particular job, they are just because so many jobs make a degree one of their requirements for prospective candidates. Basically like our Prime Minister getting his degree in Classics from Oxford.
Another cousin went to Cambridge for a medical degree. She said it was a hard slog with a lot of lectures and work to do, and she always felt one of her housemates was taking the pee a little doing a degree with minimal actual study involved, just to get the Cambridge Degree on the CV.