[Neil]

I did not go to University. I did A levels but did not do very very well in them so managed to get on a very good old school type apprenticeship.

Several people I went to school with did go to University and when I look around friends reunited etc I find many are in good job all over the world. I also know that many did not find jobs suited to their level of education after completing degrees.

We here mentioned on here a lot that immigrant workers are needed to fill certain jobs that's Brits don't want to do.

I can't help wondering if this is because we push more people into doing degrees than we have jobs for degree educated people. What happens is that you need to have a better degree to get the few jobs that are out there. You then end up with the rest of the people with degrees working in jobs where they are over qualified. Some employees wont touch these people as they see them as only wanting the job as a stand in until they find something better for them.

We have a shortage of young skilled people in this country. By skilled I mean proper skills like electrical, mechanical, plumbers, joiner etc. That is why we have so many immigrants taking these jobs.

We need to stop pushing people into obtaining average/poor degrees and instead encourage companies to take on proper apprentices. All the companies I have worked for used to have apprentice engineers, none of them do now. We are not training people to take over when the current workforce retire. I found it very hard to employ electrical breakdown/maintenance engineers that were any good last time I was doing interviewing.

What I see happening is that people appear to have moved up the rung leaving no one at the bottom of the ladder. This in effect means that many people are working higher than their abilities would have allowed them a few years ago. This has a bad effect on companies. I work as an engineers on maintenance/breakdown/improvement of production machinery so I am speaking from my background point of view. I have worked with people who were not good enough for the job they were doing, both from an ability and attitude aspect. These people end up being carried by their colleagues which is good for no one.

Education and careers advice should be targeted and focussed on the individual, not just you will go to Uni. My secondary school, Clitheroe Royal Grammar School expected everyone to go on to Uni, I could see then that was wrong and did not suit everyone. It did not suit me and I did not do it, I had school friends who went down the Uni road and IMHO wasted there time.

Basically the way I see it is we need to educate people to the correct level but more importantly the correct education for what is right for them at that time in their life. I believe educational requirements change as you go through life. I could probably get a job higher up the tree if I did a degree or something now - as it is I don't want to. I am currently happy at the level I am at, I have been lower and I have also been higher. I have never stopped learning all my life for both my work and personal enjoyment.

University is not the be all and end all of education and people should stop seeing it as that.


Oops that twoddle ended up being longer than I expected, sorry for those that fell asleep reading it.