Maybe there is still hope

[craig fowlerParticipant @craigfowler33724]

Admittedly i stole that quote from you tube!!!

[JAParticipant @ja]

I did my apprenticeship in the mid 1960s when there was an industrial training levy on engineering companies. Big firms realised they could make money by having large training schemes therefore there were lots of apprentices. In the firm that trained me 80% of those who started with me had given up by the time I finished my apprenticeship.

In the modern age this is a luxury. Any firm taking on an apprentice has to be confident that he/she will last the course. The numbers are much lower so they can pick and choose. Conversely any potential apprentice has to demonstrate aptitude like Craig.

I should add that my niece is about to finish her training at a major engineering company. At school, an all girls’ school, she was taught to use a lathe, a Boxford. The first time I used a lathe was during my apprenticeship.

JA

[Sub MandrelParticipant @submandrel]

Hi Bri,

Yup, he really loves boats. He crewed a boat from Grenada to the Uk via the Azores, just two on board and they lost the auto-tiller on the second leg. Gave his mum the screaming meamies!

I've done a bit of dinghy sailing and canoeing, many years ago.

Neil

[martin perman 1Participant @martinperman1]

In the school I attended in the 60's, the Silver Jubilee Boys School Bury st Edmunds, we had a fully equiped metal workshop and wood working shop with permanent teachers, we also had a Technical drawing classroom, my grandfather was a model engineer and my father a draughtsman so it could be said that my brother and I were born into engineering. We both did our apprenticeships at a Lucas CAV factory and have both been in engineering ever since. We both have our own workshops and we both have hobbies that rquire the use of lathes and mills. I enjoy showing our apprentices the tricks of the trade. Their apprenticeships are vastly different to the ways we were taught because its no longer carried out in house, some is done at a local college, some is done with us and the rest is done through a teaching business.

Martin P

[craig fowlerParticipant @craigfowler33724]

Ian…

You say they dont teach how to fix cars ect but that sort of thing is usually a specific college course.

But even then, mending a car these days just means bunging a plug into the engine and letting a computer find the fault fo you!!!!

[Boiler BriParticipant @boilerbri]

I have a tiller at the bottom of Pugneys water park. i was glad we were on the lake and not at sea.

[ScottParticipant @scott]

There are many days when I'd completely agree with Ian (Slotdriller) but ranting aside it's obvious there are good lads out there who are interested in engineering and have an adequate level of ability to be decent engineers. In my case I suffer from poor selection because unfortunately I don't get to choose who they send me. I'm a ship's Master and some of the Engineer Cadets we have been sent in the last few years have been truly pitiful. Unfortunately the bad ones outnumber the good ones by a considerable margin. Few people want to come to see any more and many young people have never heard of a career as a marine engineer. Many of the ones I see passing through don't seem to have any fundamental interest in engineering and neither they nor I really know why they are here. The Chief Engineer shakes his head in despair at most of them. I don't think we've had one yet that has changed a plug in his life but I suppose you could blame the moulded plug thing for that. The Chief always interrogates them about what exposure they've had to engineering so far. One of them had put the chain back on his pushbike! These aren't 16 year olds either. Most of them are 19/20/21 and have frequently already been at college doing some pointless course.
I'm quite sure that if the Chief and I were selecting Cadets we'd manage to find excellent candidates who have a genuine interest in marine engineering. We know there out there because we've caught a glimpse of a few!

[BazyleParticipant @bazyle]

SInce around 45% can get to go to university now with minimal qualifications the remainder left to try an apprenticeship or equivalent are likely to be of reduced ability or at least application. Tehn the graduates are built from less able stock so equally likely to be less able than those from a few decades ago.

Lots of films etc featuring American teenagers eg Grease used, perhaps still do, to feature 'shop' classes and lots fo car maintenance and metal work. Was it ever like that? and is it still? My (UK) school had no truck with menial manual skills but it seems most state schools had and often still have metal lathes. So why do so many people seem to barely know what a lathe is?

[GaryMParticipant @garym]

In the UK, for about thirty years governments of various shades and the media have denigrated science and engineering as careers and emphasised finance, marketing, media, culture and sport. It is hardly surprising that most youngsters are not interested in making things. They are a product of the society those of us over fifty have created. I think they have every right to be disillusioned after going to university, getting a degree as they were told to do and then finding that there are no jobs at the end of it. I think a lot of people are just waking up to the mess we are in and maybe it is not too late to do something about it. Lots of people on here have still got skills they could pass on to the younger generation. Sorry it's a bit of a rant but it's born out of frustration with 'the powers that be'.

Gary

[Sam StonesParticipant @samstones42903]

Until I read JA's comments (22/03/2013), I was about to ask –

"What ever happened to the UK's ITB (Industrial Training Board)?"

Knowledge of this +/- 2% levy scheme was a tiny part of our final year engineering curriculum. Are there any remnants of it left?

Then, shortly after arriving in Oz, I learned that a survey by one of the local institutes found …

that an important benefit to the particular industry (and therefore the country), would be Education and Training.

That was more than forty years ago!!!

Regards to all,

Sam

[Sub MandrelParticipant @submandrel]

"What ever happened to the UK's ITB (Industrial Training Board)?"

I don't know but I have an Agricutural Training Board ticket for dry stone walling

Neil

[NJHParticipant @njh]

Hey Neil

There is a very dodgy looking wall around next door (the churchyard!) – when can you get here?

Norman

[nigel jones 5Participant @nigeljones5]

It was the IETB 28 years ago, i was on it!

[Sam StonesParticipant @samstones42903]

Hi Neil,

That's a clever play on words.

Didn't think I was that dry though.

Hi Fizzy,

What's the IETB?

Regards to all,

Sam

[Sandy MortonParticipant @sandymorton10620]

I have a 20 year old great nephew who is good with boats and small diesel engines – he is currently doing his third summer with Sunsail in Greece. He would like to do a proper marine engineering apprenticeship and he is very good with his hands in my workshop but he is also dyslexic. Anyone have any positive and constructive ideas>

[martin perman 1Participant @martinperman1]

Sandy,

Your Nephew should not be treated any differently because of his problem, he obviously has no difficulties with his hands otherwise he would not be in his third season with his current job, a testimonial from his current employers would also help him gain an apprenticeship place.

Martin P

[Sub MandrelParticipant @submandrel]

Hi Sandy,

Just tell him to go for it! These days colleges give good support to dyslexics.

Neil

[FMESParticipant @fmes]

Funny you should say that Neil, Having spent a good few years training the military youngsters it became apparent quite early on that the majority of them left school with the bare minimum of qualifications, and many of those suffered from an SPLD, Dyslexia, Dyscalculia and ADHD to name a few.

Many of these difficulties were not initially picked up at school leaving the learner at a disadvantage from their classmates.

It was also noticed that the majority of these youngsters were kinaesthetic learners i.e no amount of theoretical training would get the point across, but get them to actually do the job a whole new world opened up to them.

While the majority turned into some seriously good engineers, some were just not cut out for it. There has to be a passion for the types of jobs we were asking them to do, and sometimes it just didn't happen. Not every son follows the passions of his father, and quite frankly, in order to preserve some degree of versatility, they should not necessarily be encouraged to do so, but developed in areas that they may show a 'passion' for.

I must admit that after a long career in aeronautical and marine engineering I was a little disappointed that my own son did not want to follow a similar career, but he decided to go the electronics and networking route and he freely admits that he has no interest in metal whittling but he's damned useful to have about when the miller motor decides to throw a fit, or the air con packs up.

Each to his own, and as parents we need to encourage the development in whatever route our offspring decide to take, and not to give out negative feedback just because we feel we have to.

[Ian S CParticipant @iansc]

I'v got a nephew , a cabinet maker who until reasently work first in Austrailia, and then in NZ in boat yards, fitting out super yatchs, He has a degree of dislexia, and I believe he was able to have someone as a readerwhen he sat his exams for his apprenticeship. After 8yrs boat building he's making kitchens, the boat company went into receivership two or three weeks ago, but he is still going strong.

Ian S C

[ScottParticipant @scott]

Sandy

Does he want a career ashore or at sea or ashore? Big ships or small boats?

Scott

[BazyleParticipant @bazyle]

In the eighties Maggie T introduced the idea of personal responsibility. To reduce costs to the taxpayer industrial training was made the Companies responsibility. If a Company had a training plan meeting lots of criteria they could apply for accreditation but I can't remember the buzword for it, something like CPI.
It was then up to individual employees to get themselves the training courses which made it cheaper as most people don't have the self motivation to bother.
I was an employee rep pulling together some of the paperwork to claim our compliance. We got accredited and were entitled to fly a special flag for a year. Wheeeee.

[robjon44Participant @robjon44]

I have to agree with some of the previous comments, I am well past retiring age & still ekeing a living as CNC turner, when I finally dinned into my employer that all his eggs in a very small basket he aquired probably the last apprentice I will ever train, he has now completed his Modern Apprenticeship, gained all his qualifications & picked up a couple of awards as well, infact he is so good I have christened him The Messiah, so they are still out there if you can find them.

[Swarf, Mostly!Participant @swarfmostly]

Hi there, all,

I may be remembering wrongly (it's a long time ago) but the training board I encountered was the EITB (which, I guess, stood for the 'Electrical Industries Training Board' or it might have been 'Electronics' ).

The situation was that the big firms were doing all the training and the folks who completed that training would then be persuaded to go and work for the smaller firms for more money – those smaller firms could afford to pay more because they had no training burden.

So the EITB was set up with the power to collect a levy from all the companies according to their staff head-count. The funds collected were then paid to those companies that did set up proper training schemes. It worked reasonably well for me in 'continuing professional development' as I got to go on several post-grad courses and technical seminars. We even occasionally got to visit technical exhibitions on the firm's time provided we wrote a visit report and filed it with the company training department.

I don't know what went wrong, that scheme doesn't seem to operate any more. The last time I googled 'EITB', the only hit I got was for their pension scheme!

Best regards,

Swarf, Mostly!

 

Edited By Swarf, Mostly! on 24/03/2013 15:51:56

[martin perman 1Participant @martinperman1]

Swarf,

Engineering Industry Training Board, many hits on Google.

Martin P

[Swarf, Mostly!Participant @swarfmostly]

Hi there, Martin,

Thank you for your post.

Well, I did say my memory might be a bit 'iffy' !

I haven't googled it lately – did your hits indicate whether the EITB is still operating?

Best regards,

Swarf, Mostly!

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