Give young Canadians – and Canada – a break. Teach them trades

[CdnFox]

https://nationalpost.com/opinion/frank-stronach-give-young-canadians-and-canada-a-break-teach-them-trades

The fact is, we’re graduating far too many liberal arts majors and not nearly enough skilled trades people. Many of these students are graduating with enormous debt and bleak job prospects because they lack any tangible, worthwhile skills that businesses and organizations are willing to pay for.

A college or university education is not for everyone. Young Canadians want to build a good life and become productive members of society. But we’re doing them a big disservice by not providing opportunities to make a good living and enjoy a rewarding career working as a tradesperson.

Technical trades education would be a big win for society and a big win for business, as well as a shot in the arm for Canada’s stagnant economy. Most of all, it would be a big win for young Canadians who hunger for the same opportunities and quality of life that previous generations enjoyed.

 

This is probably true. As a culture for years we have been emphasizing that you have to have a university degree. Somehow having a university degree will solve all your problems and ensure that you make big money. But the fact is that's not the case anymore for many professions. I would argue that the majority of people would be better off taking a trades or certification training rather than university. But we just don't promote that.

Harper started to go down that path but I don't think he went far enough and I don't think Trudeau has done anything along those lines. We need to get back to that.

[Moonlight Graham]

Most hgh school teachers are completely ignorant on the value of the trades and steer most students after, and towards university because that's the path they took, and many ended up with degrees not very relevant to any career besides teaching.

[CdnFox]

16 minutes ago, Moonlight Graham said:

Most hgh school teachers are completely ignorant on the value of the trades and steer most students after, and towards university because that's the path they took, and many ended up with degrees not very relevant to any career besides teaching.

I agree 100 percent. They see Trades as being  what "stupid kids who can't graduate college' do.  Worse - many of them are conservative

 

But - in fainess i notice there's already a thread on this article that  i didn't see before posting. this.  So we should probably continue the discussion there rather than have two threads on it  I'll post a link here:

 

[ExFlyer]

9 hours ago, Moonlight Graham said:

Most hgh school teachers are completely ignorant on the value of the trades and steer most students after, and towards university because that's the path they took, and many ended up with degrees not very relevant to any career besides teaching.

While you have a good point, I cannot fully blame the teachers.

They are given a curriculum and directed to teach that. Curriculum are Provincial governments driven and provincial governments are driven by voters. The public wants certain things and vote in the folks that give them that.

The direction that everyone seemed to want is university driven. Higher academic education guarantees you a better life. Well, after a few decades of that mantra, it turns out we have lots of designers of lifestyle but no maintainers of that lifestyle. We now have lots of highly educated people that cannot fix a running toilet and we have fewer and fewer plumbers.

There was a joke floating around a few years back, it went "what do you say to an engine? Answer - A big macs and a coke please".

Point is, we let out drive for education lead us to a situation now where the higher paid people are tradesmen. And when you need one, you are on a list. And because of the shortage of them, it takes longer to build a house and costs way more then it used to.....driving up our costs of living.

It will take some tome to revert our colleges back to technical schools if and only if they can. Tradesmen need to be taught by tradesmen but taking them off the jobs to teach will only exasperate the tradespeople shortage.

[CdnFox]

2 hours ago, ExFlyer said:

While you have a good point, I cannot fully blame the teachers.

Agreed.  And it's the path they themselves followed, it's not like they're recommending something that they wouldn't do , I would say it's more of a "Habit"  and lack of education on the issue rather than any mal intent or incompetence or the like.