Skills shortage - Mick's solution

[Kris.Parker1]

Once again we go full circle, are you sure they are Liberal not Labour?


I thought Liberal were going to get better, not lull on this kind of problem. Look at the national unemployment rate... it's the best in the world...

[Jack E]

I am sure all the tradesmen out there were once apprentices, somebody gave them a go and they should now do the same.
I have two trades but work for somebody else. Employing apprentices is not up to me but the company employs many.
As far as on the job training goes I would not like to see the quality of a Refrigeration Mechanic / Electrical Fitter Mechanic who has not done a days theory. These are probably two of the most technical trades and definately require alot of teaching as well as on the job experience.
Apprentices will make more money than a uni student and will not owe money on completion (except for the ute loan which it seems all apprentices must have). There is also every chance that they will earn more than most graduates in the long run (perhaps they can then employ an apprentice of their own to boss about)!!
My partner has two degrees, I have two trades and I wish she earned as much as I do!!

[journeyman Mick]

I am sure all the tradesmen out there were once apprentices, somebody gave them a go and they should now do the same.

Jack,
Although I've got my trade papers I never did an apprenticeship as I couldn't find anyone able/willing to offer me one. While I would like to train an apprentice I simply can't afford the cost in lost time. I've got no idea on the figures but most tradesmen I know are self employed, and when things get busy they find other contractors to share the workload. There's a huge repository of skills and knowledge locked up in a section of the trade that simply can't afford to put on an apprentice.

.As far as on the job training goes I would not like to see the quality of a Refrigeration Mechanic / Electrical Fitter Mechanic who has not done a days theory. These are probably two of the most technical trades and definately require alot of teaching as well as on the job experience.

When I was in charge of a swag of apprentices at a cabinetmakers they did their theory on site, in the office. The lesson materials were delivered from a remote TAFE (as the Cairns TAFE didn't offer cabinetmaking) and the apprentices spent a set time every week on the materials. I would help them with any questions and if neccesary set up a call every week with the tutor to go over any problem areas. Not saying this is the best approach, or even possible/desireable for all trades but flexible delivery might sometimes make an apprenticeship more of a consideration.

Mick

[Ludo]

This is way to simplistic.

"It seems to be a law of nature that when any society goes through a period of upheaval and transformation, simplistic world-views increase their appeal.

Right now, Australia is looking like a classic case of point. For the past thirty years, we’ve been living through a cultural revolution,characterised by four main themes: Gender, Economy, Technology and Identity, that has radically redefined the kind of society we are becoming and now, right on cue, the fundamentalists are here to tell us how to make sense of it all.

The gender revolution, beginning in the early 1970s, has redefined the role and status of women in our society and, in the process, sent shockwaves into almost every aspect of the Australian way of life. The gender revolution has transformed the institution of marriage, rewritten our divorce and birthrate statistics, changed the character of the Australian family, revolutionised the workplace, redrawn the political landscape… and even changed the attitudes and values of the male of the species (though, for many men, that is still a work-in-progress).

While all these changes in the social fabric have been occurring, we have also been living through the restructure of the Australian economy. This has resulted in a cultural shift in which we have gradually learned to live with a widespread sense of job insecurity. We have witnessed a significant shift from full-time to part-time work, and from permanent to casual employment. We have seen the problem of under-employment emerge as more significant issue than the problem of absolute unemployment..

The redistribution of work has resulted in a redistribution of wealth. We have widened the gap between rich and poor: the average annual household income of the top 20 percent of Australian households is about $180,000; the average annual household income of the bottom 20 percent of households is about $12,000. We are also living with our highest-ever levels of personal debt and household debt.

Such shifts throw out a challenge to our traditional ideal of egalitarianism and raise serious questions about whether we are prepared to allow Australia to become a three-class society, stratified by the dollar.

We have been through another period of reappraisal of our sense of national identity as we come to terms with the whole idea of multi-cuturalism and the significance of the proposition that we are defined by our diversity. We are also coming to think of ourselves as a country closely tied to the Asian region, with all that that entails for our traditional trading and cultural relationships.

Australians seemed to reach a point, around the turn of the century, where we sought refuge in a kind of social disengagement. We knew there was a ‘big picture’ demanding our attention, but we were wearied by too many changes and too many issues: globalisation, Aboriginal reconciliation, the republic, foreign investment, youth unemployment, population policy and then, on top of everything else, the threat posed by international terrorism.

In response, we have turned the focus inward, and concentrated on things that seemed to be within our control: backyards, home renovations, our children’s schools, our next holiday. This shift has been reflected in a corresponding shift in our TV program preferences: we have gradually lost interest in current affairs, and developed a voracious appetite for so-called ‘lifestyle’ programs.

When a society enters a period of self-absorption, it is almost inevitable that there will be a rise of intolerance and prejudice, and a decline in compassion. The Australian response to the Boxing Day tsunami disaster notwithstanding, those signs are emerging in contemporary Australia.

It’s a strange moment for us – a dangerous moment - a time when we seem to have almost been encouraged to disengage; to indulge our darker impulses of xenophobia and intolerance; to think of ourselves as consumers and of our lives as being devoted to the expression of material values. (Perhaps that’s what the Prime Minister meant when, in 1996, he dreamed of an Australia where we would all be ‘relaxed and comfortable’.)

The anxiety created by living through such a period of transformation, instability and uncertainty promotes a tendency to retreat and disengage from the social and political agenda. Such a period is also a rich breeding ground for fundamentalism of all kinds. It is a time when extreme and simplistic voices are likely to be given more attention than they normally are, almost as if our insecurities create a vacuum we yearn to fill with simple certainty.

That’s one reason why Hitler’s voice attracted so much attention in Germany between the two world wars; he offered simple answers to the confusion of the time.

Senator Joe McCarthy’s voice attracted undue attention in the highly-charged, unstable atmosphere of the Cold War.

US religious fundamentalists attracted huge attention, during the social and cultural upheavals of the Prohibition Era. And now, in the throes of our very own Cultural Revolution, the fundamentalists are on the march here, too. I’m not suggesting for a moment that Australia in 2005 is like Germany between the wars, or like the US during the Cold War or Prohibition, but we are experiencing our own period of uncertainty and instability, so we shouldn’t be surprised that the voices that offer ‘simple certainty’ have peculiar appeal.

I mentioned the religious fundamentalists of the US and, in fact, that’s where the term ‘fundamentalism’ sprang from. A group of US Southern Baptists published a series of booklets called The Fundamentals, which called on America to return to a hardline, literal interpretation of scripture. They were sceptical about the idea of America regarding itself as a Christian society, and their fundamentalism should properly be regarded as part of the social protest movement against increasing permissiveness – social, cultural and religious – characteristic of America in the 1920s.

When it comes to religion, that same brand of hardline scriptural literalism is currently on the rise here, as well. The Pentecostalist churches (variously known as Assemblies of God, Christian City Church, Hillsong, etc) are experiencing an extraordinary surge in church attendance. Indeed, Pentecostal churches of all kinds have become the second most popular denomination in terms of church attendance, after the Roman Catholics and ahead of the Anglicans.

The appeal is clear. Religious fundamentalism offers us the security of grasping the meaning of life here and now, and the promise of eternal life in the hereafter.

By the way, the current brand of popular fundamentalism also chimes with two of our current national preoccupations arising directly from the mood of social disengagement: the obsession with ‘me’ and rampant materialism. Fundamentalism is essentially concerned with personal salvation , and material prosperity is regarded by fundamentalists not as a barrier to faith but as a sign of God’s blessing on their lives.

Fundamentalism is a kind of reductionism that appears, at times like this, in many more places than religion, and in many other guises.

Economic rationalists, are a variety of fundamentalist, because they claim to have the one, true answer – the free market!

The social scientists who want to tell us that media violence is the cause of increasing violence in society are fundamentalists (who face, incidentally, the problem of reconciling their theory with the reality that violent crime is actually declining).

One answer! One explanation! One cause! That’s what we yearn for, and that’s what the fundamentalists offer.

But what if the human condition isn’t like that? What if some of the questions we face actually are complex? What if most events that occur in human systems are the result of many factors? What if mystery and ambiguity are things we simply have to live with?

I’m inclined to agree with the Indian mystic, Krishnamurti: ‘Freedom from the desire for an answer is essential to the understanding of a problem.’

Mind you, I don’t want the engineer who designs a bridge or plane to think like that, but the nature, the purpose, the meaning of our lives are not amenable to the kind of formulae that make planes and bridges safe.

Manning Clark wrote of the straiteners and the enlargers of life, and he thought the present time would be a period when the enlargers – the visionaries, the inspirers, the prophets, the dreamers – would come into their own. But I fear his predictions may have been too optimistic. I fear the enlargers’ time may not yet have come. Perhaps the current surge of fundamentalism is the last gasp (at least for a while) of the straiteners, the limiters, the reducers – those who think that, whatever the question, the answers can be made simple.

Waiting in the wings, surely, are a new breed of enlargers with new energy and new vision. Where will they come from? Will they be the new republicans? The academics? Will they come from a revitalised labour movement? Will they be women? Will they be young people (whose early experience of life has certainly taught them to live with uncertainty, and has encouraged a more communitarian spirit in them)? Will they be religious leaders? Artists? Writers?

Leadership, from whatever quarter it may come, is obviously important in inspiring us and enlarging our vision. But if the present era – all around the Western world – teaches us anything, it is that we had better not wait for leadership to inspire us. Those of us who dream of a better world re-engage; we must each enlarge our own vision, set our own course and give our own meanings to our own lives. The alternative is acquiescence. Rather than waiting for someone to inspire us, perhaps it is time to begin inspiring those around us."

HMK

Ludo

[journeyman Mick]

Ludo,
you're right, it's a very simple answer for a possibly complex problem. But I think the problem is simpler than designing bridges or aircraft:

How do we get more skilled tradespeople?

Now, like I said, I could only comment about my sector of the building industry and I'm pretty sure what I'm proposing would see a huge increase in the number of apprenticeships.

Would Australia have more skilled tradespeople? Undoubtedly
Would it cost less than building and staffing the proposed federal TAFEs? Most probably.
Would we end up with a number of "duds"? Yep, but that happens no matter what form of education or training you go for.

I wasn't aware that I was proposing a simple solution for all of our society's woes, just a solution for one part of a simple but large problem. So go on Mr smarty pants, besides quoting Professor Manning Clark and Krishnamurti can you propose anything other than navel gazing?

Mick

[bitingmidge]

Waiting in the wings, surely, are a new breed of enlargers ..... Where will they come from?

I get emails from them every other day, they reckon it can be done without surgery and all!!

Cheers,

P

[craigb]

Ludo,

I just read through all that, and my first thought was that you must have thought deeply about a lot of issues. But then I realised it was all in quotes and it was all HMK's work. Who is HMK?

But after I thought about it I'm buggered if I can see what it tells us about adressing the skills shortage. :confused:

And BTW when we talk about the so called skills shortage, I don't think we're only saying that there aren't enough chippies around.

Although that is certainly part of it.

As far as the age old system of training tradesman goes, if, as Mick says it's no longer viable for the little guy to take on an apprentice, well then maybe we need to look at a new paradigm.

Craig (who's always wanted to use paradigm in a sentence )

[bitingmidge]

Actually Craig, it's an egalitarianism paradigm.

P

[Driver]

Furthermore, Craig, it's ineluctably an egalitarianism paradigm.

Col

[craigb]

Furthermore, Craig, it's ineluctably an egalitarianism paradigm.

Col

Yes. You are correct Mr Driver. You also have an excellent memory

So, no need to worry about old timers disease just yet :eek:

[powderpost]

Has anyone been to a TAFE College to ask or see what is done there with apprentices? Or even offered comment on the syllabus content?

Jim

[Driver]

No-one with half a brain would dispute the need for trade apprenticeships. The problem for one-man businesses is simply that they can't afford the cost and time associated with teaching.

However, that's not such a problem for big businesses. The issue here is that the drive for reduced costs has forced middle managers in big corporations to ignore basic training needs because of the (relatively low) costs of hiring and employing people who are seen as non-productive.

In other words, big business can actually afford the cost and time associated with teaching young people a trade but the perceived short-term needs of those businesses to keep a lid on costs is actively discouraging them.

I've been a general manager in a big business for some years (just retired from that job to do something different ). About two years ago, during one of our regular management meetings, I challenged the seven people reporting to me to name the youngest people in the company. They duly did so. I then asked them to tell me the ages of those young people. the surprising answer was that they were all in their late 20s and early 30s. None of us thought it was a good thing that our youngest employee was 28 years old.

Accordingly we set about looking for some teenagers who might be interested in cadetships or apprenticeships. A couple of local high schools were keen to help (and a couple of others were completely apathetic about it - bad cess to them!). We put together, with the active cooperation of the schools, a program that had a couple of Year 10 students spending one day per week with us for a school term. This has had pretty good results. Out of a total of 8 young people who've been through the program, 2 are now on full-time cadet- and apprenticeships with the company, 2 have gone back to complete full time studies to Year 12, one has joined the armed forces and three have dropped out.

There are grants available from government programs to fund the formal cadetships and apprenticeships. The benefits to the company of having teenagers in the business are not all quantifiable but they are real. Apart from the obvious benefit of having people learn the business properly from an early age, the intangible benefit of having your staff exposed to the sort of naive questions asked by sixteen-year olds is surprisingly useful. People have improved the way they do some tasks simply because they could not come up with a rational justification when asked the naive question.

To answer powderpost's last point: I've done some work with high schools and TAFE's to provide input to their courses. The response is a typical curate's egg: they are good in parts. Some people engaged in our education system have a real vocation and are genuinely interested in fostering young people. Others are a time-serving drain on public funds and should find themselves an alternative way to earn a living.

Col

[powderpost]

Driver, congratulations, at least you did something positive instead of listing all the reasons "why not". I find the responses to the question about a visit to a TAFE college interesting. It is easy throwing **** at TAFE without backing it up. The way I see it is that the college can fill in the blanks left by on site training. On site training is where the bulk of training is acquired, but it is not complete. Any claim that it is, is narrow minded and the proponents are training for their business, not for the trade. All apprentices reserve the right to move on and it is to their benefit and the reputation of their trainers if that apprentice is a credit to the trade.
Jim

[E. maculata]

I've kept my distance from this debate (?)As I wish to see what the various needs and views that stakeholders put forward.

#1 What Mick suggested way back at the start of the thread with travelling instructors filling the gaps in Prac with onsite lessons, IS availiable, in NSW at least (but I suspect he may have known this already. )you just need to talk to the right people

#2 There is many more providers out there than TAFE, they are known collectively as Registered Training Organisations quite often owned by the relevant industry involved or the industry bodies, and yes many of them offer excellent high quality strategic learning, usually these organisations only employ people from that arena to instruct only within that arena, check your local ones out.

#3 Do Not get locked into the "Must send them to TAFE" mentality, or the "I had to do that Cwap so why should my guys waste their time?" thinking either. There has been several major and minor revolutions in Vocational Education since many of us did our time. Before anyone accuses me of Tech college bashing, TAFE does do some really quality stuff, automotive is one example.

#4 Yes I am involved in this for a living, after 20 years in my industry, I got to help others realise their skills potential and help employers realise their staffs' abilities.
Last year 2 of my clients (1 employer & 1 apprentice) won the national awards in their fields of endeavour.

My advice is when it comes to ensuring skilling into future, if whats on offer doesn't suit, find a local DET (Dept of ED) person with passion and explain what you need, they will help, and don't settle for the same old stuff handed out by some empire building/ monovision organisations.

[journeyman Mick]

Jim,
I hope I didn't come across as TAFE bashing, not my message or intent at all. My problem with the government building TAFES to address the skills shortage is that it is without logic. I've never heard of anyone not putting on apprentices or trainees because there wasn't any courses on offer. Employers don't put on apprentices because of the conceived cost, the lack of suitable employees, too much paperwork etc etc etc not because there's lack of classroom space. The way the training "industry" is structured now with all the non government RTO's I'm sure if a classroom space shortage were to arise due to a sudden intake of apprentices then there would be a scramble by providers wishing to make money out of the situation. I really think that the government needs to make it more attactive for small employers to take on apprentices. When this happens the rest will follow, but it's pointless building more classrooms for non existant apprentices.

Mick