Government must build on Holt Report apprenticeship recommendations, says ECA

[Dan]

The Electrical Contractors’ Association (ECA) cautiously welcomes the Government’s response to the publication of the Holt Report into apprenticeships and SMEs. However, it says more must be done to promote transparency in the further education sector if apprenticeship training quality is to improve.

Read the full news article

 

[oldtimer]

Funny how we are going back to O-levels and apprenticeships which basically says we got it wrong and it is ironic that it was Maggie Thatcher who killed off the apprentice system and telling us there is no such thing as society .

Then Mr Cameron is now saying bring it back as we all need to be a part of the Big Society .

Maybe I am getting too old but I wonder if they will change it again after another 30 years

 

[Guitarist]

Maybe I am getting too old but I wonder if they will change it again after another 30 years

Of course they will change it again. Just one endless cycle of people who think their way will work, where others failed....

 

[Knobhead]

The apprentice system worked for well over 100 years, it proved it’s worth……

If, and it’s a big if, companies will commit their selves we hopefully have a new intake of well-trained “tradesmen” in the future.

 

[malcolmsanford]

Only trouble is a great idea ......but where are these lads going to train. About the only places where we actually manufacture anything now is cars.

I know us old'uns hanker for the good old days, but when we had Pits, Steel works, car plants ship yards, power stations, we had the capability to train......... industry not services!!!!

We had places where we could and where I was trained ...................where are we going to train these lads JD sports, B & Q, Matalan !!!!

Be interesting to see where they propose these apprenticeships come from

 

[oldtimer]

Malcolm I can agree with that as agencies are getting more previlent where it was companies who ran the show years ago I remember a guy saying thats them getting agency guys in in a dismissive way I told him remember these guys dont get any training or hiliday,sick pay ,pension plus they get paid less so in other words you get what you pay for and the agencies get richer by ripping off the poor spark

 

[Engineer54]

Only trouble is a great idea ......but where are these lads going to train. About the only places where we actually manufacture anything now is cars.

I know us old'uns hanker for the good old days, but when we had Pits, Steel works, car plants ship yards, power stations, we had the capability to train......... industry not services!!!!

We had places where we could and where I was trained ...................where are we going to train these lads JD sports, B & Q, Matalan !!!!

Be interesting to see where they propose these apprenticeships come from

Whilst i agree with you on the demise of many of our past major manufacturing companies, I think there are still a good many companies out there that can, if financially motivated, provide excellent apprenticeship schemes. They range from the major electrical contracting companies, down through the large, medium and even some of the smaller electrical contractors. We still have a fair number (nothing like the numbers we knew) of industrial manufacturers, including power stations, along with the distribution companies. In fact when i checked, i was quite surprised at the number and diversity of UK industrial manufacturing base. everything from brewery's to hi-tech components etc etc.....

So these companies are around, and a good many probably already have apprenticeship schemes in place, if only to replenish the skill requirements needed for their particular industry. Let's face it they need too, ....A Electrical Trainee ain't gonna to be any good to them whatsoever!!... lol!!

No-matter what anyone says, a technical based professional trade, NEEDS a good training base both academic and hands-on. If we don't start providing that kind of training again, under the the well proven ''Indentured Apprenticeship'' It's not going to be too long, before we will a 3rd class country, that will need to source it's technical skill needs from overseas... Basically what you, and myself are doing now, for the companies we are working for... lol!!!

Trouble with the UK as far as i see it, you've let all these leeches into the equation that have systematically gone about controlling several sections of the industry by lowering standards to suit their own means, while filling their own pockets. Getting that control back, is going to be a long up-hill struggle, that is going to need every bit help from wherever you can get it.

 

[Geordie Spark]

Funny how we are going back to O-levels and apprenticeships which basically says we got it wrong and it is ironic that it was Maggie Thatcher who killed off the apprentice system and telling us there is no such thing as society .

Then Mr Cameron is now saying bring it back as we all need to be a part of the Big Society .

Maybe I am getting too old but I wonder if they will change it again after another 30 years

Yes .. and it is thanks to that bitch that I ended-up out of work ( I had been an Apprentice Training Instructor) along with some 80+ excellent but only half trained apprentices and some 600 other hard working folk - all from a company that just before she came to power was awarded the Queen's Award For Export Achievement, yet within two years of her reign was closed down.

The building that that business occupied is now a wholesale warehouse probably employing a couple of dozen people.

Maggie Thatcher ... the Grantham grocer's daughter who knew the price of everything & the value of nothing.

 

[Guitarist]

Have to agree with Eng here. There are still plenty of firms around who need electrical engineers, but unless they are given incentives to start training again then it will all be contracted out workers until they all dry up several years from now. The major problem I've seen in industry is obvious... Management (accountants) think one electrician is much the same as another.

 

[Engineer54]

Have to agree with Eng here. There are still plenty of firms around who need electrical engineers, but unless they are given incentives to start training again then it will all be contracted out workers until they all dry up several years from now. The major problem I've seen in industry is obvious... Management (accountants) think one electrician is much the same as another.

Can't blame them for that Guitarist, during at the time when i was training, You needed to have completed a full apprenticeship to be an electrician. In those day's once you had completed your apprenticeship, the training afforded would have allowed you to basically work in any of the sectors of our industry. Further training only generally being required in areas of specialist industrial manufacturing and the like.

These day's, it seems that the training of electricians is based around the lowest technical denominator, that of house bashing.... And they can't seem to even get that right either!!!

 

[thekingiam]

as a youngster 38, i think that where in maggies day the main income they believed come from london and the banking system borrowing monney with interest to upcoming countries to develope, thats why no investement or support was given to some of our strongest industrial entities. maybe the government has realised that we can no longer support the whole countries reliance on the banks.either this or they are looking for votes as they have just realised that they have not done anything to earn there wages since they have been in power apart from raising students fees?

 

[Geordie Spark]

as a youngster 38, i think that where in maggies day the main income they believed come from london and the banking system borrowing monney with interest to upcoming countries to develope, thats why no investement or support was given to some of our strongest industrial entities. maybe the government has realised that we can no longer support the whole countries reliance on the banks.either this or they are looking for votes as they have just realised that they have not done anything to earn there wages since they have been in power apart from raising students fees?

Even a thick Geordie like me could see that the dot com / banking / service businesses would all end in tears. How the Hell can you make money when what you're "selling" isn't tangible? You can't see it, smell it hold, feel touch it therefore does it exist - and if that's the case how can you sell it & make money from it??

 

[thekingiam]

actually this country does not agree or listen to anyone that has not been in an isolated bubble all there lives in very expensive school dormatries away from common folk and taught by other people who have lived in a bubble all their lives. the fact that the every day common worker drone can vote for these people is probably down to a pannic instinct when they put one against another and make one less desirable than the other. so unless you can lie cheat and have an unimaginabe first for cash no matter how many people you send to war then the normal worker cannot gain power ime afraid

 

[Guitarist]

Can't blame them for that Guitarist, during at the time when i was training, You needed to have completed a full apprenticeship to be an electrician. In those day's once you had completed your apprenticeship, the training afforded would have allowed you to basically work in any of the sectors of our industry. Further training only generally being required in areas of specialist industrial manufacturing and the like.

These day's, it seems that the training of electricians is based around the lowest technical denominator, that of house bashing.... And they can't seem to even get that right either!!!

When I was in industry several years ago, the (large) firm I was working for inherited loads of machinery from a site which had been shut down. Much of the equipment which arrived didn't have any control gear, so we (maintenance electricians) got the job of designing and building new cabinets. As you can imagine, this was quite a large job, as we were still expected to carry out our normal duties. Anyway, the firm decided to get us some help (unbeknownst to us) by hiring an electrical contracting firm. They were a great bunch of guys, but not one of them had ever designed a motor control circuit or worked with safety interlocks.
When we queried our Manager about this, he said the immortal words.... "You're all electricians aren't you. Just get on with it."
It ended up with us working double-shifts to get the cabinets built while the contractors pulled all the supplies in. What made it even worse, was that they were on twice the money that we were!

 

[Engineer54]

Well, when i was still in the industrial side of things, our company had outside contractors in most of the year, making ready for the 3 week shut down period, installing power cabling, IT works, control cables and cabinets etc etc, in fact anything that could be installed prior to the shut down, was.... Those guy's seemed to know what they were doing, certainly during those 3 weeks of shut down. Never seen plant get ripped out and replaced so quick. And it all had to work on the Monday morning of the first shift, with horrendous penalties if it didn't!! lol!!

 

[Guitarist]

As always, the right people for the job, not just anyone who has the title "electrician" or "electrical" in the company name

 

[Engineer54]

Well i'm going back a good number of years now, but yes your right, you bring in the right people for the right job. I'm not saying that some of those old apprentice trained electricians weren't really given the through training they should of have been given. But i do believe that the majority of the older electricians did get an excellent training, especially those with/from an industrial background or the major to large electrical contracting companies etc.... Where after coming out of their time, they could choose the sector of the industry they wanted to follow... Very, very few apprentices coming out of their time today, will have that ability, especially if there companies main work has basically revolved around the domestic and light commercial sector...

 

[Guitarist]

Like everything else these days, people are only trained for the specific job they will be doing.

 

[Geordie Spark]

When I was in industry several years ago, the (large) firm I was working for inherited loads of machinery from a site which had been shut down. Much of the equipment which arrived didn't have any control gear, so we (maintenance electricians) got the job of designing and building new cabinets. As you can imagine, this was quite a large job, as we were still expected to carry out our normal duties. Anyway, the firm decided to get us some help (unbeknownst to us) by hiring an electrical contracting firm. They were a great bunch of guys, but not one of them had ever designed a motor control circuit or worked with safety interlocks.
When we queried our Manager about this, he said the immortal words.... "You're all electricians aren't you. Just get on with it."
It ended up with us working double-shifts to get the cabinets built while the contractors pulled all the supplies in. What made it even worse, was that they were on twice the money that we were!

It's like the story of the Dance Band travelling in separate vehicles on their way to a gig & having difficulty finding their way. It ended up with only the bass player & drummer actually arriving - the rest of the musicians having lost their way completely - and the organiser of the event saying to the drummer & bass player: "You're musicians aren't you?? .... just play !!"