The Trade School Disadvantaged?

I am a Canadian living very close to the US border (200 feet). Our school system must be somewhat different based on the tuition fees charged by the unscrupulous schools for trades mentioned in the article cited. The private schools where I live must compete with the public colleges that also offer trades. I think the highest fee charged would be $5,000.00/year for a full slate of courses. My father after 40 years in mining took up upholstery at the age of 65 for a paltry $150.00 (1978 dollars) tuition and operated his own business for the next 5 years. The course was offered at a community college. Private schools do compete and are most often cheaper than the public schools. I would think that the community colleges in USA would offer comparable courses at reasonable rates. There is for reasonable profit and then there are "Madoff" schemes disguised as tuition. Enough said, education is too important to f*** with. We in North America and the west need an ever educated and skilled society. It is our best investment (governments better heed and help) in the fast competing global business world.

With regard to us with degrees and/or diplomas it is always good to expand our knowledge base. It is no longer the fellow you graduated with that you are competing for jobs, it is the world. It will be the companies with the most savvy that will succeed and provide the jobs we all depend for our livelihoods. Canadians and Americans interface commerce as a tight family. We have a slight advantage at the moment because of our banking laws but we both must be ready to take on challenges from emerging economic giants like China, Brazil, And India. We in the developed west are presently enjoying a technical advantage with an educated population but even if only 10 % of the Indians get higher education, that is still more that 110,000,000 likely elite graduates that must be reckoned with in the new business world. Compound that with the Chinese, Brazilians, and other emerging powers and then realize how profound the problem looms. I do believe these countries know full well the value of education and keep sending students to foreign soils to later bring home knowledge. Knowledge is power. If that is what it takes to compete then keep getting an edge with better education. If investment is needed in R and D then our banks and Governments should back us up.

Don't forget that it was the Americans that visited the moon and American technology that developed most things we take for granted. Now is not the time to sit on laurels, deserved as they may be.

And don't let people get sucked into making stupid decisions and paying exorbitant fees for questionable education. If the private for profit schools are killing students with future debt and over zealous promises, let the government provide competition and then watch the tuition fees drop for private schools that want to charge unrealistically.

good work. keep it up. ga

"American technology that developed most things we take for granted"

I am really not sure that that is true at all. I think that the word "some" should be substituted for "most".

Yes Andy I am sure you are right but the Americans were very prolific inventors and entrepreneurs in the late 19th and most of the 20th centuries. Granted much of the leg work may have come from German, Scottish, French, English, or other scientists but the actual real development often came from the Americans. Television is a good example of that typical development. First envisioned by a German, expanded by a Scot, and finally bought to fruition by Philo Farnsworth, an American farmer who mulled over the rows left by the plow and applied that knowledge to the cathode tube focused on a screen. Airplanes, Rocketry, and nuclear development is mostly attributed to US enterprise but really envisioned elsewhere. But the spirit of development extended to small inventions like a toaster or iron.

You could argue that the Japanese were the new Americans towards the later half of the twentieth century with all of their cheaper electric gadgets and mostly reliable cars. They, the Japanese, quickly became giants in global terms. Today we see more competitors and better products at lower prices from a host of countries. It really and truly is the globalization of the middle class. We can all lose our places if we blink too many times. Education remains our best investment for future prosperity and it is a real race to keep up. I think it should be affordable to everyone and perhaps even mandatory. Patents, if they are even respected, can only work for a short time.

You could argue that the Japanese were the new Americans towards the later half of the twentieth century with all of their cheaper electric gadgets and mostly reliable cars. They, the Japanese, quickly became giants in global terms.

I also think the Japanese took/bought the developed ideas from our (U.S.) colleges and applied it to commercial use.

p911

exactly my point. We allow foreign students in and then they usurp the knowledge base for competitive edge. NA has to really step up to keep up now.

The trade and tech. schools are only part of the problem. I spent 15 years trying to get an aprenticeship before I finally landed one. Our industry here in Canada at least does not have the foresight to invest in the future. Industry wants someone who is trained right now, and not in the 4 to 5 years it takes to complete our apprenticeship for the trades.

Another issue is the people who want an apprenticeship, are being passed over for those individuals who have been given a licence by our government without ever having put their hands on a tool. We have people with licences who don't know how to operate slip joint pliers or how a 3 phase motor is wired. An electrical degree from some far off school does not substitute for an apprenticeship. It's actually quite dangerous.

When I was president of my business, hiring skilled labour was the one snag we always had in expanding business. We never seemed to have a shortage of work but taking on a job and then finding skilled labour to do it was another story. We always juggled our skill pool but we were not able to offer apprenticeships with the exception of licensing well technicians and water treatment plant operators. Whenever we advertised for field work we would find that we had to repeat the offer several times to fill only a couple of spots. Salary, benefits, and work hours were never the issue but skill sure was an issue. I sold my business to a couple of employees with good skill in chemistry and instrumentation and now they are looking to expand. They need field staff with electrical, instrumentation, and plumbing skills. It will be tough and taking on low skill to develop for the future is costly and is limited by the number of skilled people to pass on the knowledge to the unskilled.

And we also hired people with skilled diplomas in instrumentation only to find out they really lack real skills. There is a disconnect between schools and hands on skills. It is a good place for governments to step up and subsidize the companies that are willing to hire the rookie graduate that needs to acquire the skills.

Being an avid student of history, I find it quite interesting that many companies and government are repeating the mistakes of the past once again. At one time the way to learn a trade in any of the engineering fields was to first become an apprentice and learn by doing. Along came the idea that trade schools were required, initially they were private institutions , this includes the universities. Cost of an education was expensive and the number of skilled engineers and technicians dropped. That is when the government stepped in to help fund 'higher education' and the cost came down.

Fast forward to today, anyone can enroll in a university or collage, no matter their actual skill level or ability to learn and innovate. What do we get, thousands of people with a bit of paper waving it in the air saying me too, me too, and in response government and industry change their standards to require said bit of paper.

What is needed is for the return to learning by doing to weed out those who only want that bit of paper as a way to earn more but not actually add anything to the equation.

Cast in point: how many so called engineers do you know who are actually only glorified accountants or senior managers who have not actually ever do a scrap of creation? How many so called engineers are sales executives who have no clue what it is they are actually trying to sell?

At one time Canada was a leader in innovation, and the United states a leader in manufacturing, seems those who are chasing the money have forgotten that.

I could go on and on with examples, but my fingers hurt, and I need more coffee.

have a great day everyone.

SEVERAL CONSIDERATIONS.

1. SCHOOLS, NO MATTER THE TAX CLASSIFICATION, PROVIDE INCOME TO THE EMPLOYEES AND MANGERS. MOTIVE PROFIT.

2. IF YOU COULD MAKE 100 MILLION A YEAR RUNNING A LARGE COMPANY, WHY WOULD YOU TEACH AT WHARTON FOR 400K?

3. IN A COMPETETIVE WORLD CREDENTIALS ARE A MUST.

4. IN MY COMPANY I HAVE FOUND THAT #1 MOTIVATION, #2 EXPERIENCE, #3 EDUCATION AND TRAINING IS THE CORRECT ORDER OF CONSIDERATION WHEN EVALUATING POTENTIAL EMPLOYEES.

MY 2 SONS WHO DO VERY WELL IN OTHER FIELDS, WERE TAUGHT BY ME THAT IN COLLEGE 96% OF THE INSTRUCTORS ARE INCOMPETENT, IN BUSINESS AND THE PROFESSIONS LIKEWISE 96% ARE INCOMPETENT. IT'S NOT A TOTAL LACK OF IQ BUT RATHER A MATTER OF ETHICS AND MOTIVATION. IT'S A FACT THAT YOU HAVE LITTLE CONTROL OVER BUT WELL THOUGHTOUT LEADERSHIP CAN RAISE THE LEVEL OF THESE 2 FACTORS AS WELL AS LOYALTY.

AS A CHILD, I ASKED A SUCCESSFUL BUSINESS MAN, WHO CAME HERE TO ESCAPE NAZI GERMANY, HOW HE MANAGED TO BUILD SUCH AND ENTERPRISE. HIS RESPONSE WAS" I JUST KEPT TRYING TO MAKE MYSELF BETTER AND ONE DAY I LOOKED AROUND AND THIS WAS HERE." 50 YEARS LATER I KEEP THAT THOUGHT IN MIND AND TRY TO EMULATE THAT MAN. IT WORKS.

MY ADVICE, TAKE ALL THE FREE EXPERIENCE AND TRAINING YOU CAN GET. AS WITH ANY PURCHASE, EVALUATE WHAT YOU ARE GETTING FOR YOUR MONEY WHEN PURCHASING EDUCATION AND TRAINING BEFORE YOU BUY AND KEEP IN MIND THAT THE MOST COMPLICATED THINGS IN THE WORLD ARE JUST COMBINATIONS OF SIMPLE PRINCIPALS. I FIRMLY BELIEVE WE WERE PUT HERE TO BE PRODUCTIVE AND CREATIVE AND THE GREATEST EULOGY WOULD BE HE LEFT THE WORLD AND THE PEOPLE AROUND HIM BETTER. NOTHING YOU COULD BUY FOR YOURSELF WILL MAKE YOU HAPPY FOR LONG, BUT THE THINGS YOU CAN DO FOR OTHERS WITH YOUR MONEY IS PRICELESS.

Dear Conway,

Please turn your capslock off. In the net world, writing with all caps is considered by all that it represents yelling. One can not yell all the time, unless one is a drill seargeant, in which case, it should be clarified that CR4 is a voluntary association of people, and no one will voluntariliy listen.

That being said, I found your suggestions and insights fairly valid and interesting, but a bit on strong-flavoured and polarizing. I disagree with the 96%, but if it followed the Pareto principle of 80-20, I might agree.

Chris

Hello Conwaymech: Are ya all from Conway Arkansas. I spent a little time there with Aeromotor and Franklin motors. Had some very hot but good BBQ in Conway and enjoyed toad suck daze.

I have operated my own business with a small employment base of 10-12 (now retired). I am not against profit and the last I counted it was not a four letter word. What I take exception to are schools that charge high tuition and force these same young people to start life with high debts. Yes I know about the buyer beware and getting competitive prices. It seems from the article, some in the school business can charge what they want. We have no problem with schools operated by governments in most countries. I would just extend public school options in the post secondary levels with the objective of lessening fees for student. There seems to be a lot of leeway for profit despite public competition. We in Canada have a mix of private and public at all levels. It has not been a big issue but our tuition fees are 1/3 or less than those in comparable schools in USA. Yeah I know the American mindset is different and hates any government interference. So do Canadians believe it or not.

I have always operated successfully in a very competitive environment. It was important to have good employees and they were the ones to make success. I have seen some of the most motivated employees you can imagine but if they did not have a good learning base it could take a long time. Our business would spring for training money if we thought it was worth our effort. I have been involved in soccer teams at high levels and the coach would always take one but only one player/project if they had lots of enthusiasm and motivation. The same in business but I could only take on one project at a time. It was always nice when you could employ people with experience and education combined with lots of enthusiasm, a rare beast indeed. There are gems in any single factor. An employee always has to meet the criteria of acceptance (a rotten apple.....).

If teachers are so bad why pay high bucks for the education if there is a cheaper alternative. I know that I have had teachers that could turn me on and others that turned me off. She had to be pretty...just kidding.

Oh yeah turn your caps lock off or others will think you are YELLING.