| Topic: | Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:No longer Great Britain manufacturing wise | |
| Posted by: | Vanessa Smith | |
| Date/Time: | 27/03/12 14:15:00 |
| The T.Us may have had their faults but please don't forget we owe them many of the privileges we enjoy today. The problem as ever was politicians and their beliefs - Thatcher did for our manufacturing base in the early 80s, it is to her we owe the legacy of the blasted banks and insurance companies and their greed which is why we're in the sh*t now. It became unfashionable to encourage schools to push skills like engineering and trades like carpentry, all of a sudden it was all A levels and degrees. Academia has its place but we will always need skilled tradespeople and the innovators that come from encouraging practical subjects, we need people who can put bright ideas into useful objects that we can manufacture and export. We also had the opportunity of proper indentured apprenticeships not the Mickey Mouse stuff on offer nowadays. A lot of us left school at 15, and earned a living because we had good basic educational skills and we continued to work throughout our lives using the further experiences we had gained. I don't think keeping kids at school until they are 18 will benefit them or the country, we weren't out rioting because we had money to do things and paid our way, this is what is denied to so many now. I just feel sorry for the poor schools having to cope with these young adults, many of whom will resent being there and who will probably not gain anything useful from that extra time. Not going to university is nothing to be ashamed of but there have to be alternatives for teaching really useful skills, it doesn't help when we have someone in charge of education who is downgrading practical subjects being taught when it is patently what we need. |