Learning a Trade !

It has long been a fact of life that learning a skill is the way to gain a permanent job and with it a better  than average pay packet.  Young people are advised to go to university and earn a qualification, but there is the alternative of gaining an apprenticeship with a skilled craftsperson

The only problem is that this is not practical for a middle aged person who needs to learn a completely new skill in an ever changing world.  Apprenticeships are usually a four year term that involve low wages initially as the apprentice gains skills that compensate his or her employer a return for work done.

The Australian Productivity Commission is pushing for a move away from purely time based skill accreditation.  Sone people pass through the learning process faster than others and the present regime is entirely time based around that four year completion

That proposal is getting stiff opposition from both Industry groups and the Trade Unions who warn that moving away from traditional workplace based apprenticeships could threaten training quality.  This skill factor not only protects the tradesperson from death or injury on the job, but also protects the public who pay for his or her services

For instance, a plumber certified to install gas to a home needs advanced safety training. A gas leak can be extremely dangerous and gas explosions have been known to level large buildings and cause mass casualties, but many plumbers never work on gas installation in their entire working lives.  

It can be argued that the various degrees of risk can be identified by the license applicable.  In many cases, the person is actually overly qualified for the low grade task undertaken. Most apprenticeship courses withhold certification until every aspect of the trade involved has been covered and a trainee can be useful with skills for only part of that work.

The Commission is suggesting that expansion of student loans for  more certificate and diploma courses and says more contestability  in funding arrangements for publicly owned TAFE providers would help governments get a better return on the $ 6.4 billion spent on vocational education and training.

This old apprenticeship training relied on young people leaving school and immediately starting a four year course to learn a trade.  They were probably still living at home, and hence a low wage was not a restraint. Today, we have mature people with a need to change direction several times during their working lives and this delivers a completely new aspect to both renumeration and the type of training available. 

This suggestion merits more than just a cursory rejection.  Many vocations suit skill upgrades on an " as needed " basis as science adds more complexity by way of innovation. The learning process is still stuck in the horse and cart age.  It requires twenty-first century thinking.