So we are short of "tradies"?

You surprise me. 

I needed something done the other day. It is the sort of thing I cannot do myself. It needed a masonry drill and other items I do not possess. It needed skills I do not possess.

Fortunately my BIL has the necessary tools and skills and he came around to do it. Middle Cat and I told him where the necessary handle needed to go and he had the job done in about ten minutes. 

My BIL is very good at this sort of thing. He is so good the rest of the family tends to rely on him too much. I will ask him to do something only as a last resort but he does have an enormous variety of skills. If he is not certain how to do something then he will look it up or seek advice. He likes to know that sort of thing. When he was at work his boss would come to him to get things done even when they had nothing to do with his actual role. My BIL would get infuriated by these "compliments" but had no choice.

It is choice I have been thinking about. We are being told over and over again that one reason for the present "housing crisis", or shortage of new homes being built,  is because we have a shortage of "tradies" - the sort of people who can build a house, put in the plumbing, paint the walls, tile the roof and wire it all. Why? 

One side of politics is offering "free TAFE" (Technical and Further Education) for people who want to work in these areas. The other side is saying they see a need for more secondary schools where people will get a head start on these skills.

We had these sort of schools once. They were called "technical high schools". You went off to one of these at the end of your primary schooling if you thought you wanted to be something like that. They were unashamedly intended for "less academic" students. Other students went off to high school. In "area" schools we were divided into two groups, the "public examination" stream and the internal examination stream which was much the same as the technical stream.

Then came the idea that everyone needed to be in the same sort of school. Students could not be held back. Everyone needed to have the same opportunity to reach university entrance standard and more. The curriculum changed dramatically. The amount of woodwork, metalwork and domestic science taught was reduced to almost nothing. You don't need these things at school we were told. You can do it later at TAFE colleges. 

Students did not do this. The students who could not cope with the more academic curriculum ended up bored or misbehaving or just miserable at school. The more able students were being held back by the "trouble makers". Students were, and still are, leaving school earlier. There are not as many students taking up apprenticeships. When they do take up an apprenticeship their bosses are finding these students do not have the most basic skills or, as one put it to me, "which end of the hammer to hold". 

The Senior Cat always said it was a mistake to do away with technical high schools. We both knew people who had done extremely well after attending such schools. A former Governor of this state was a student at one. A matron at a hospital was one, a multi-millionaire was one. A person who developed a small but life saving medical device was one. There were more applicants than places for apprenticeships too.

Were "tradies" in short supply? No doubt we thought they were when we could not get one instantly but it seems there were plenty around. A good plumber and a good electrician always seem to have more than enough work to do. The best of them are highly respected in the community. They have not needed to go to university to do their jobs but they have needed to learn their trades.

We keep being told that students should not need to make decisions about what they want to do until much later in their schooling than the end of primary school. That may be true but I still believe there are many students who know they are not going to reach the level of university entrance. They have no desire to go and will never have the desire to go. There are some who will always struggle to read. They have no desire to learn computer programming or set theory or read the classics or know about the past. Nothing will change that and trying to teach them those things is not in their best interest. It would be better for them to be in the metalwork room learning the skills which will lead them to make the equipment for someone else to be a surgeon.

I am wondering now if there isn't a gradual shift back to such things. Is this why one of the major parties is suggesting the need to build more high schools and, in doing so, saying they need to be technically oriented? Would it be holding students back or giving them a hand up into their future? Might we end up with a glut of tradies instead?