Apprenticeship applications have seen a doubling in the last year as more young men and women look into carpentry, car mechanics, skin therapy (hair and beauty), bricklaying, childcare etc. TheSocRes actively encourages young people in the 14-25 (-35?) range to start by looking at local college websites and contacting the colleges.
Many are deterred as they feel their low grades will hold them back, they ponder if they had no chance of university – why would a college offer them an apprenticeship? Believe you have the skills! The colleges will help you build your foundation!
Such fields of building, childcare or mechanics warrant attention – it may be the individual that makes a breakthrough in building technologies, skin/hair care or practices – yet we still need the actual thousands of trained people to undertake nationwide implementation of such skills and applications.
The blatant unfairness of many schools ramming university down the KS4/KS5 throats causes rifts and a latent depression in younger people as many know they don’t have a prayer of going to university, which makes many feel very undervalued – yet why all the pressure to go there? Projection based on the previous generations’ failures, or a need to stay well clear of a non-existent manufacturing/extraction industry?
What many people don’t understand (of any age) is that up to the early 1990’s the UK only had 50 traditional universities. By the turn of the century it was 103 old/new universities (as fifty polytechnics were told by the then Conservative Government to change their respective titles). As the 2010’s begun UK now has 150 universities – as colleges jumped on the bandwagon and unnecessarily upgraded their namesake and joined up with other colleges to have a larger presence.
That is a ridiculous amount of growth, feeling quite forced and just administration name tuck up’s as people clamber for the title of university which is totally unnecessary. It voids the integrity and value of colleges and polytechnics/ apprenticeship and hands on training – this is not acceptable.
Pushing for all these university titles twenty years ago, ridicules internationally recognised strong words of polytechnic and colleges (which other countries proudly still retain). Polytechnic should be a UK recognised term for strength with ‘hands-on’ qualifications of HNC and HND (one should never underestimate the value of HND; which many establishments have dropped such qualifications now) in engineering, sport science, teaching/education, media/film school, construction technologies etc.
Being a Polytechnic or a College should be a UK recognised proud title – not some foolish snobbery where people, professionals and industry consider traditional Universities to be superior to polytechnics. The value of college apprenticeship should not be underestimated. It can lead onto more accreditation within many industries of HND’s, a further two years and apprentices/trainees can gain a degree on top of the HND.
Such qualifications should be cited as gradual benchmarks over the 16-25, 30, 35 years of age range – not emptying out the 6th forms and ramming thousands of ambivalent young minds into degrees which may serve these great teenagers no real beneficial use.
Not to mention the debts at the end of it ….. there are thousands of 30-40 year olds in UK who have still NOT began repaying their pre 1998 old student loan system (whereas many 2000’s graduates have already begun repaying student loans upon their first pay day under a system that is less worse!) and are trapped with increasing debts that they have little chance of repaying!
We need our universities, for Knowledge Exchange, for Research breakthroughs – yet do we really need 150 of them when 50 will be more than sufficient? It will only take one former college or polytechnic to revert to their previous name …. Others will follow.
The value and integrity of apprenticeship, HNC’s and HND’s, hand on training should never be undervalued – for it is one of the best formats that we can empower our younger generation who sadly will be saddled AND survive the burden of this recession that the world has suffered since latter 2008.
What can you do?
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