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Skills Shortages

The construction industry (namely services) is suffering from skills shortages without an apparent solution. There has been a flurry of press activity but not much action. How does the industry make itself more attractive to the younger generation? There are short training courses offered but these are not the solution and there are many mature people entering the industry on the promise of a quick buck. The majority of these (that I have encountered) have little passion for the industry and the quality of work can be quite poor. We don't want to end up in a situation whereby these guys are training the next generation.

I think that the apprentice schemes should be made easier for SME's to take part in. Many are small concerns and cannot commit to the burden. However, some of these owner operators have so much experience to offer and it's a shame to let the knowledge pass by. Perhaps the 'apprentice' could be in charge of his/her own portfolio and it to be made easier for them to jump between companies to gain their experience? The colleges could hold a register of approved organisations so that the system is not abused by people wanting cheap labour....

I have met youngsters that have been able to attend and pass the first year of college but unable to progress further because they cannot find companies interested in taking them on. How can this be so with the skills crisis? I presume the bureaucracy is putting off the SME's.

I would guess that other industries have similar issues?

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0 Roy Bowdler over 5 years ago

Clive

As a community of engineering and technology professionals how can we affect these issues? The attitudes and behaviours of teenagers, especially those in disadvantaged circumstances, relative to the mores of the rest of society have always been problematic and your description (without the “gaming”) could probably have come any time since the 1970s. Readers of this may have some relevant experience, but to have become members of the IET and perhaps even Chartered Engineers, obviously found a successful pathway through their teenage years. We focus our efforts mainly on various STEM initiatives, I don’t know how we evaluate the impact of these, but my guess would be that they barely affect the most disadvantaged.

By the time I was about 13-14, I began to yearn for adulthood and some form of self-sufficiency, my father had left school at 14, but the government had just raised the leaving age from 15 to 16. Most of those who were “kept back” caused trouble and gained little during the extra year. Those who had left at 15 readily found employment and when I left at 16, I was lucky to secure a good apprenticeship. I saw myself as a “working man” and would have been insulted to be considered a child, I still had youthful exuberance, but by the age of 21 had a mortgage and a career.

This last weekend was also memorable for our Polish community as their nationhood was restored in 1918. We have been very fortunate to attract some of their skilled people (as we have from many other countries worldwide) to fill the gaps you allude to. The teenage behaviour problems that you describe are fewer in that country and diaspora (in common with many others), perhaps due to stronger “family values” and a more socially equal society? In spite of the fact that such cultures often delay the opportunity for a young person to make a productive economic contribution much later than in my personal example.

By chance, I was talking to a Pole on Saturday who spent his late teens in Technical College, followed by a period of National Service as a Technician in The Polish Air Force. When he came to the UK he was employed by a well-known long established company where nearly all the senior technical people had developed via apprenticeships. He recognised the advantages of the UK model of an employed apprenticeship, rather than being college led with work placements. His company’s biggest regret was that they had scaled-down their apprenticeship programme for more than a decade, which they have now restored. Unfortunately, for many young people such opportunities are hard to find. Stable organisations with the wherewithal to train and retain skilled technical employees longer-term are far fewer, or even virtually extinct in some areas of the UK.

I haven’t checked out your claim about Technical College vacancies, but I worked in an extremely close partnership with one of the largest from 1996-2008. Over the final 5 years the partnership expanded to include a University. I think that it would be fair to characterise technical colleges as being a “poor relation” relative to universities. However, in absolute terms most are carrying out sterling work, often in modern well-equipped facilities. Sometimes recovering basic education for those teenagers who didn’t engage successfully in the school system, helping to prepare teenagers with vital vocational skills like Engineering and Technology, some to higher level overlapping with universities, including working with employers to support apprenticeships or experienced staff up-skilling and studying part-time.

Many of our universities emerged from a Technical College tradition, but societal expectations and government policies, have incentivised them to compete for academic prestige and 18 year old “bums on seats”, rather than prioritise the needs of local industry. This was rammed home to me as I was driving to work yesterday morning, when someone discussing University Fees on the radio, asserted that “part-time, in-career study at university had been virtually "killed” by the current fees regime. The claim may be exaggerated, but to me this is hugely concerning and potentially harmful for most of those who we seek to represent.

Returning to the question of what we can do? Anyone reading this can look up the work of the IET Education & Skills Policy Panel and contribute ideas if they wish to. My attention has also been drawn to some good work by the IMechE recently. However as a whole, the community of professional institutions and the strategic bodies that serve them, have long been dominated by those with academically advantaged and solid respectable “middle class” social backgrounds. Some modest progress has been made to recognise vocational skills more equally, but there are many within our midst for whom petty divisions in educational, professional and social status are very important. You mentioned Electricians, which is clearly “IET territory”, but also one which would be seen by those I have just described, as a “working class trade” not a “middle class profession”. The mess system within the armed forces, although more meritocratic in the technical elements rather than mainly social class based, may also have an influence. Interestingly, however far an apprentice electrician progresses (perhaps to be a director of a business, or even the president of a country) they are still likely to encounter forms of snobbery. Some of the other trades that you mentioned, would fall below the (level 3) threshold of “professional” recognition and therefore not really within our “footprint”.

My challenge would be to drop the snobbery and get behind vocational education and training. Alternatively we can position ourselves as the voice of an (academically defined) elite as we have chosen to in the past. Such a position doesn’t disqualify us from commenting on issues around practical skills or advanced craft and technician practice. But it does risk such contributions being seen as patronising, overbearing or even ill-informed. Elitist attitudes risk the potential displeasure of those who control charitable status, or award licenses to register professionals. Our actions to-date have mostly fed the dominant sibling of universities, perhaps at the expense of technical colleges and our system of recognition only the top academic slice of Engineers, albeit a few manage to creep in from more vocational pathways.

In using “we” here I am referring to the whole of our professional engineering community of which the IET has arguably been the most progressive member. We do make considerable efforts to interest young people in Engineering and Technology based careers, through STEM and other initiatives. I’m not sure that we can do a great deal more to address the disadvantage that afflicts some people of school age. However, we certainly could try harder to support Technical Colleges and to ensure that those who pursue careers from a more vocational pathway, receive equitable treatment on merit rather than on the basis of what school they attended, which determined their academic performance at the age 18.

We could of course debate the relative merits of The Daily Mail or Daily Telegraph ("The Professional Engineer’s Newspaper") or even The Daily Express for those over 85.



Yours disgusted and concerned, but not of Tunbridge Wells
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0 Roy Bowdler over 5 years ago

Clive

As a community of engineering and technology professionals how can we affect these issues? The attitudes and behaviours of teenagers, especially those in disadvantaged circumstances, relative to the mores of the rest of society have always been problematic and your description (without the “gaming”) could probably have come any time since the 1970s. Readers of this may have some relevant experience, but to have become members of the IET and perhaps even Chartered Engineers, obviously found a successful pathway through their teenage years. We focus our efforts mainly on various STEM initiatives, I don’t know how we evaluate the impact of these, but my guess would be that they barely affect the most disadvantaged.

By the time I was about 13-14, I began to yearn for adulthood and some form of self-sufficiency, my father had left school at 14, but the government had just raised the leaving age from 15 to 16. Most of those who were “kept back” caused trouble and gained little during the extra year. Those who had left at 15 readily found employment and when I left at 16, I was lucky to secure a good apprenticeship. I saw myself as a “working man” and would have been insulted to be considered a child, I still had youthful exuberance, but by the age of 21 had a mortgage and a career.

This last weekend was also memorable for our Polish community as their nationhood was restored in 1918. We have been very fortunate to attract some of their skilled people (as we have from many other countries worldwide) to fill the gaps you allude to. The teenage behaviour problems that you describe are fewer in that country and diaspora (in common with many others), perhaps due to stronger “family values” and a more socially equal society? In spite of the fact that such cultures often delay the opportunity for a young person to make a productive economic contribution much later than in my personal example.

By chance, I was talking to a Pole on Saturday who spent his late teens in Technical College, followed by a period of National Service as a Technician in The Polish Air Force. When he came to the UK he was employed by a well-known long established company where nearly all the senior technical people had developed via apprenticeships. He recognised the advantages of the UK model of an employed apprenticeship, rather than being college led with work placements. His company’s biggest regret was that they had scaled-down their apprenticeship programme for more than a decade, which they have now restored. Unfortunately, for many young people such opportunities are hard to find. Stable organisations with the wherewithal to train and retain skilled technical employees longer-term are far fewer, or even virtually extinct in some areas of the UK.

I haven’t checked out your claim about Technical College vacancies, but I worked in an extremely close partnership with one of the largest from 1996-2008. Over the final 5 years the partnership expanded to include a University. I think that it would be fair to characterise technical colleges as being a “poor relation” relative to universities. However, in absolute terms most are carrying out sterling work, often in modern well-equipped facilities. Sometimes recovering basic education for those teenagers who didn’t engage successfully in the school system, helping to prepare teenagers with vital vocational skills like Engineering and Technology, some to higher level overlapping with universities, including working with employers to support apprenticeships or experienced staff up-skilling and studying part-time.

Many of our universities emerged from a Technical College tradition, but societal expectations and government policies, have incentivised them to compete for academic prestige and 18 year old “bums on seats”, rather than prioritise the needs of local industry. This was rammed home to me as I was driving to work yesterday morning, when someone discussing University Fees on the radio, asserted that “part-time, in-career study at university had been virtually "killed” by the current fees regime. The claim may be exaggerated, but to me this is hugely concerning and potentially harmful for most of those who we seek to represent.

Returning to the question of what we can do? Anyone reading this can look up the work of the IET Education & Skills Policy Panel and contribute ideas if they wish to. My attention has also been drawn to some good work by the IMechE recently. However as a whole, the community of professional institutions and the strategic bodies that serve them, have long been dominated by those with academically advantaged and solid respectable “middle class” social backgrounds. Some modest progress has been made to recognise vocational skills more equally, but there are many within our midst for whom petty divisions in educational, professional and social status are very important. You mentioned Electricians, which is clearly “IET territory”, but also one which would be seen by those I have just described, as a “working class trade” not a “middle class profession”. The mess system within the armed forces, although more meritocratic in the technical elements rather than mainly social class based, may also have an influence. Interestingly, however far an apprentice electrician progresses (perhaps to be a director of a business, or even the president of a country) they are still likely to encounter forms of snobbery. Some of the other trades that you mentioned, would fall below the (level 3) threshold of “professional” recognition and therefore not really within our “footprint”.

My challenge would be to drop the snobbery and get behind vocational education and training. Alternatively we can position ourselves as the voice of an (academically defined) elite as we have chosen to in the past. Such a position doesn’t disqualify us from commenting on issues around practical skills or advanced craft and technician practice. But it does risk such contributions being seen as patronising, overbearing or even ill-informed. Elitist attitudes risk the potential displeasure of those who control charitable status, or award licenses to register professionals. Our actions to-date have mostly fed the dominant sibling of universities, perhaps at the expense of technical colleges and our system of recognition only the top academic slice of Engineers, albeit a few manage to creep in from more vocational pathways.

In using “we” here I am referring to the whole of our professional engineering community of which the IET has arguably been the most progressive member. We do make considerable efforts to interest young people in Engineering and Technology based careers, through STEM and other initiatives. I’m not sure that we can do a great deal more to address the disadvantage that afflicts some people of school age. However, we certainly could try harder to support Technical Colleges and to ensure that those who pursue careers from a more vocational pathway, receive equitable treatment on merit rather than on the basis of what school they attended, which determined their academic performance at the age 18.

We could of course debate the relative merits of The Daily Mail or Daily Telegraph ("The Professional Engineer’s Newspaper") or even The Daily Express for those over 85.



Yours disgusted and concerned, but not of Tunbridge Wells
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