Content of Core Electrician Courses, how do we change it?

Well I also had in mind more things such as heating systems, and more on basic skills. Not just making pieces to a minimum standards in a hurry but spending time on how to make them well and efficiently. 

As you say, with companies going into increasingly specialised markets, the range of things they are exposed to can be very small.

It would not be building on sand, rather building on what is relevant. This is all the more important now that many of these courses run on much less than half the teaching hours they used to. Such are modern economic pressures.

Cutting out what is irrelevant and putting in or increasing what is relevant is not dumbing down but upgrading. 

Sparkingchip said:

Are these topics covered at school these days?

I haven't the faintest, but I could ask my grand-daughters.

You might be surprised how much of the maths and other theory in my year 1 engineering degree course was covered in the 1970s O-level syllabus. I can even remember it!

All an electrician needs to know is that currents produce magnetic fields around wires and visa versa.

I spent many years in electronic and electrical test and diagnosis, including devising and designing test systems for a very wide range of custom products, such as Train Brakes, both the mechanical and electronic systems.  I never once used knowledge of depletion zones, the Bhors model of atomic theory, left or right hand rules or many other things which the modern electrician has to learn to be qualified. 

If we focussed on things which were important we would not have electricians who for example believe that SY cable is armoured or can be used outdoors. Despite having no BS standard, the dam stuff is on all the courses and as a result becomes a "go to", when it is totally unsuitable for almost every application you will find it used on.

Yes, there is a world of difference between a repair technician and a design authority, but neither are the purpose of the level 2&3 electrical installation courses. And that is my point. The courses have had the hours of teaching greatly reduced over many years, now valuable time is being wasted of things they will never use as electrician, technicians and many design engineering positions.

Heating controllers etc, are given far too little time.  

Thank you for the useful suggested additions which I shall add to my list. :-)

Your are correct, but the larger terminals will always need torquing. I think you will find Torque settings on the modern leaflets which come with accessories. Though you may need an illuminated  microscope to read it. :-)

Yes a good basic grounding was taught in those days. By the 1990's they had dropped trigonometry out of maths. By the 2000's they did a superfcicial "science" instead of proper subjects like physics, chemistry and biology. Judging by what is coming out of school now they have dropped maths out of maths. Students are totally zoned out by simple problems that a normal 1960's 10 year old would do with ease, and even more mind blowingly, without a calculator!

I attended another training course today to add to my skills.

Today it was “Emergency First Aid at work +F” the plus F being forestry, this involved driving over into the middle of Wales to spend the day in a log cabin and marquee in the middle of a wood learning the basics of how to deal with horrific injuries from chainsaw saws and high pressure hoses in addition to the more common work place injuries and incidents.

I just passed comment to my wife that normally people attend training courses and then try to put what they learnt into practice, however with the First Aid course you attend the course hoping to never actually use the knowledge and skills you have learnt.

Personally I will quite happy if I never have to use the skills and knowledge I acquired today, which is not normally the anticipated outcome.

The torquing problem, or rather, the loose connection problem stems more from the engineering of quality out of products by the bean counters rather than the not-tight-enough-screw phenomena. Products from 40 years or more ago simply did'nt suffer as much from the lack of a torque figure written down in some manual somewhere being applied. The introduction of cheap and nasty single cadmium- plated steel  screw and clamp terminals did much to cause the ensuing problems of burning/overheating connections and joints. When stuff was made of solid brass with terminal holes drilled in round rather than square fashion and when the screws which fitted into these terminals were of the same material, the difference in temperature coefficients didn't exist, so the thermal cycling did not cause loose terminal syndrome in the same way it does now.

Years ago a torque wrench was the preserve of those running aluminum alloy engines in order to prevent warping when refitting/re tightening a cylinder head for example. The requirement simply didn't exist in the electrical world unless you worked on some kind of mission-critical kit or other.

We had solid brass double screwed round tunnel terminals at high current connections which match the round csa of cables, and with brass and copper, the risk of thermal cycling causing a loose connection was much smaller.

Then the bean counters came along to value engineer all quality out of product in pursuit of a quick buck and an ever shortening product life cycle, which has resulted in higher product failure rates and much waste. So rather than revise standards to impose a minimum materials standard for the production of items carrying an electrical current, they sell us a torque screwdriver instead, thus treating the symptoms rather than the root cause!

There you go - had I not done my (not-really-necessary-or-directly relevant) broad based training back then - which included materials technology - I would not have been able to comment!

Fleming's Left and Right hand rules was secondary school 4th year stuff. Not difficult.

And it learns 'em their left from their right.

Many young electricians are interested in loud car audio systems. Make their learning relevant and interesting and they are more likely to remember the technical stuff.

Looooookk

www.youtube.com/watch

Z.