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Trades and Degrees Needed
12 March 2005
One of the features that characterised the Coast's youth culture
in 1994, as it was outlined to me by a succession of local school
principals, for example, was that too many youth were uninterested
in education beyond Grade 10. The easy-going lifestyle and the surf
culture seduced many able students away from colleges, schools and
universities. Because all the nearest universities at the time were
in Brisbane, that was a further disincentive to study for higher
qualifications.
When a region cannot mobilise its talented youth, it is a recipe
for future problems.
Across the last decade there has been a gradual but quantum
change across the Coast in attitudes to education. More students
are staying in school beyond G10, more are going to training
programs, and the Coast's own University has annually become more
attractive. This represents a markedly better foundation for the
future of the Coast, with many more students every year developing
their different talents.
In addition, we are also seeing younger families being drawn to
the Coast, and among them are an increasing proportion of
professionally qualified people with degrees, diplomas and
certificates of various kinds.
Amidst this cultural shift locally, where attitudes of
perspective students and the community toward education have become
so much more positive and promising, we have also been made more
aware of a national skills shortage recently.
The Prime Minister has excited considerable debate on this topic
following his discussions with his New Zealand counterpart, Helen
Clark, a few weeks ago.
If the ensuing debate results in a yet higher number of students
going into apprenticeships and trade careers, then that is a plus
for the Nation at this time, and we should consider a range of
inducements to make that happen.
Part of the debate, however, has focused on how some students
might reconsider university entry, and choose trades instead. If
this boosting one sector at the expense of another is seen as the
major strategy, then it would be misguided or mistaken. It will not
be as important as encouraging more students who had not previously
thought of trade training, to reconsider, and take on courses or
apprenticeships as an alternative to short-term casual work or even
dropping out. In other words we need to think in terms of
increasing the national talent pool, not redirecting from one
sector to another.
If students have qualified for university entrance and have a
will to succeed, then there are studies which indicate that there
are individual and national benefits of taking that course of
action.
Of course there are wealthy tradesmen who do not have a degree
and good luck to them. We need them. But we also need more
graduates in an economy such as ours. They also can earn attractive
salaries.
We categorically cannot afford to see a further reduction in the
numbers entering our universities.
The reasons are becoming more and more obvious. The various free
trade agreements, for example, that will soon impact on us fully,
have the potential to cruelly expose our weaknesses, and when we
compare our current intellectual and technological firepower with
that of the major trading blocs, there is some evidence that we
could be vulnerable. It is imperative that we build our national
skills AND intellectual base, and not play one sector off against
another, or we, as a region and a nation, will suffer.
Professor Paul Thomas is Vice-Chancellor of University of
the Sunshine Coast