Look guys I understand your frustrations but there isn't a massive conspiracy to de-skill the industry and as far as I can tell standards are on the increase because training providers, City & Guilds, EAL, the IET, The ESC and the scheme providers are all working to ensure people are competent.
Now you really are taking the Pee!! Please give us a clue as to where you can see electrical standards that are improving?? Scheme providers are the very LAST people to quote, as to ensuring competence in the industry, they like the training centres, ground feed on the lowest possible denominators. C&G Institute are consistently lowering the industry level standards of qualifications and have been for a good few years now. ...FACT the IET and other institutions, such as CIBSE have had to higher the entry levels because industry standards have decreased since 1996 (or was it 99), that includes ONC/OND, HNC/HND and even Degree level qualifications!! So pull the other leg it's got bells on...
Competence is a mix of training and experience. However people have to start somewhere especially if they can't get a job so they more often than not choose training and education. Every industry needs an entry point and I for one think domestic installer is a pretty good place to start.
Of course YOU do!! Explain to me exactly how 18/20 days of training at one of your centres equates to a guy that was stacking shelves at Tesco's can leave your training establishment and be competent to enter unsuspecting peoples homes to undertake electrical work?? Explain where, or on what work experience he is going to base any work he does on??
A starting place, ...OK i'll go along with that for a moment, but should that starting place allow anyone to go into peoples homes under the FALSE pretence of being an electrician, be classed as a starting place, ...No i don't think so!! Your sending these guy's out into the Real world with what is an open book ''add-on'' qualification (17th ed) that is BTW based around the applicant having a core qualification. It is NOT and never has been, a qualification that competency as an electrician is to be based on!! Where is this working experience going to come from then??
You are going to have to accept that the Domestic Installer is here to stay. You can not expect people to do a 5 year apprenticeship if all they will be doing is domestic work. It simply isn't necessary and it would be a huge waste of everyone's time.
Wrong, we do not have to accept anything of the kind, that's just you're wishful or maybe smug thinking!!... Now, still accepting the need for a starting place (your words), 18/20 days of training, no matter how those days are spread out, is totally unrealistic no matter which or what way you look at it. Please don't assume that we don't know what is and what isn't required to work on ANY electrical installation domestic or otherwise, we DO!! We also see the far too numerous fundamental questions asked on this forum by your so called competent graduates. Obviously your competent rating of these guy's (and gal's) isn't working too well....
The reality is that before Part P and Domestic Installer schemes what we had was a load of untrained cowboys. As frustrating as it must be for those who have trained for 5 years yes you can train with us in the basics of domestic installation within an 18 day period and our courses will ensure you are safe to go out there an install.
Total rubbish, we are seeing far more cowboy installations and repairs since Part P, than we ever did before!! Dave down the pub has always been around, and still is, Part P has done nothing to stop Dave!! But now we also have the untrained, inexperienced fools that actually think (because of you and other training providers) that they are fully trained electricians.... Yours and others 18 day training course periods, will ensure one thing only, that you're graduates are anything BUT safe to go out there and install!! And you can take that to any bank of you're choice!! Fool yourself by all means, but don't try and fool the experienced and fully qualified electricians, you're on a hiding to nothing.
If we raise this bar too high and insist on a 5 year apprenticeship for domestic installation people will simply run underneath it and we end up back at square one.
No-ones insisting on 5 year apprenticeships, there are other ways to become a qualified electrician, but it will take considerably more time and a lot more effort than one of your ridiculous 18 days training courses and WILL require obtaining a ''Core'' electrical qualification. Square one sounds a much better proposition than what you're trying to sell us right now!!
I know I won't win you guys over as your minds are already made up but some of your comments seem a bit extreme to say the least and it is clear that anyone involved in helping people enter the industry is in the firing line.
Are you really naive enough to think that you ever had even a remote chance of winning over the real qualified electricians of this profession, with an 18 day training course that allows any Tom Dick or Harry with a pocket full of cash come in and flood the profession with wanna be electricians??
When i entered this profession, i and every other apprentice applicant, had to undertake an entrance exam, to establish ability and that we were capable of successfully completing the technical side of our training. What is yours and other training centre's entrance requirements, ....as far as i can see, it's only the ability to pay the course fee!! Ability, IQ, etc are just another hindrance you can do without!!
