Latest Moan From You and Me 2023

Something to do with paying a few generations to do damn all, perhaps? The teenage girls reproduce to 'earn' a living, don't know about the boys Why work?

 

For a few less pleasant years of my life, I lived next door to a family that quite literally made breeding their business. There were three generations in one house, which in itself is nothing to pass judgement on, but they openly admitted that some of the kids had been spawned to increase their benefits and generate childcare excuses for why the adults can't work. The most sickening part was when one of the sons turned 16. He decided he didn't want to go to college (which would have extended their family allowance until age 19), so they kicked him out.

 

The problem is our benefits system is too generous, the younger generation no longer need to work, to have a good living, and with no work there will be no pension, therefore no benefits will be stopped when you retire,
On the otherhand if you do have a state pension it means you don't qualify for higher benefits and housing
Why work at agricultural basic work like harvesting fruit and vegetables, have to pay to get yourself to work and back making an even longer day When benefits are better than you can earn

 

Are you referring to the professionally unemployed.
I came across some of those at the job centre some years ago, and nobody hassles them.

 

Oh yes we all know a few of those lazy..........

 

Good. Most of our seasonal workers at least used to come from Ukraine (the poorest nation in the whole of Europe) followed in numbers by those from by Russia, Bulgaria, Belarus, in that order. The consequences in '22 and now are clear. Ukrainians are not allowed out of their country, few people in the UK want Russians or Belarusians even if they could get here. With these problems and an the increase in demand for workers in the eu, everyone, including in eu countries, is having to look further afield for workers.

"Who edujmucates the edjumacators?" (sic). The downward spiral is an excellent example of a positive feedback mechanism. Add to that the ease with which people can, if they want, contrive to live a reasonable lifestyle without working, and bang goes the workforce.

Unfortunately I think things will only get worse here and in the eu.[/QUOTE]

 

Presumably to Asia and Africa where people are hellbent on making a better life for themselves and their families, even if that means leaving everything they know to go to another country where they know they'll face discrimination and they'll have to put in significantly more effort to get a decent job and earn respect than their local counterparts.

This is my point. In the UK, and possibly other more developed nations, kids just breeze through school like it's a chore (it is) being taught often irrelevant stuff by teachers that are largely demoralised having gone through years of training only to find they have to deliver a box ticking exercise. Those kids are not daft, they know perfectly well that their GCSEs mean absolutely nothing in industry because the local engineering firm or IT company doesn't care about your life studies grade C. Whereas kids in India or Africa already have actual skills by the time they're adults, and from there the only way is up, with the right dose of self discipline and determination.

The failing in our education system is in my opinion threefold. Firstly, the curriculum is largely irrelevant. English, maths, and at least one science or tech subject are key. But these things should not be taught in isolation. The bulk of school time should be spent on industry relevant content.

Secondly the teachers should be allowed to teach. That means ditching the government rulebook and actually working with the kids to figure out what makes each individual tick, how to get a point across to each and every one of them.

And thirdly, but no less importantly, let's drop the notion of the dead end job and the push for a high pressure career. Not all kids want to move to the city to sit in an office. It's ok to simply earn a living doing something you don't hate. You can always change your mind later, and skill up for something else.

And as for when you get to university, well, 50k of debt, 4 to 5 years of prime earning potential lost, for a piece of paper.

 

Fortunately when I got my Level 4 in the late 90s everything had obviously be sorted out and the Assessors were well trained, very knowledgeable and supportive.. I think I wouldn't have done in in the early years, especially if Assessors weren't qualified in the subject!!
Like all new things...wrinkles have to be ironed out I suppose.

 

I like @shiney went through the old city and guilds system, just my opinion but when that was replaced with NVQ, standards did seem to drop.
To some extent, can I say, we also saw a drop in the quality of people that were being steered, by the education system, into my kind of work.

 

All this talk about Qualifications makes my head hurt, i'm still a thick qit

 

Years ago I did NVQs. I think they were largely pretty good. They had a nice balance of practical and theory aspects.

Although on balance they were good, they had their faults. I remember doing a practical assessment to fix a PC. The scenario was that the user had reported it was running slow. Back then, the 286 often had a turbo button. When it's off it would run at 8 MHz for backwards compatibility with older software, or you activate turbo for newer software.

Straight away, I saw the turbo button wasn't pressed, but this was a level 3 assessment, and if course I knew it wasn't really broken, surely they're testing my diagnostic methods, so off I went with various test tools and meters, measuring signals and voltages all around the motherboard and noting my findings. I noted that master CPU clock had an anomalous signal. In the end the instructor asked if I'd checked the turbo button. I said yes, it's clearly off, but that's so you can emulate a fault and watch me run diagnostics. He replied, no, that is the fault. So in essence, my level 3 electronics assessment, that one at least, simply required me to press one button.