skill been taken out the trade?

[Jason Smith]

oi, lee, you should have your head in the books !!- Hows the studying coming on ?

 

[baldsparkies]

Around four years ago, I was working for a company that required our services rectifying cable install faults along with panel re wiring on new installations around the country. The original electricians had come from europe and had difficulty understanding the wiring specs which were in english. This was for a well known retail chain. Circuits were incorrectly marked, and the panel lighting control for third and full lighting was all messed up. It was to much trouble to call back the original installers, and worked out cheaper and less complicated to get us to sort it out. I am not pointing fingers just stating a factual situation that I witnessed and was involved in. It does make you form opinions though, so much for going for the cheapest tender.

 

[lee sandland]

oi, lee, you should have your head in the books !!- Hows the studying coming on ?

been at it all day so its time for a beer and plus you can learn alot on here just reading the post ,had some good advice from chris(acat)
thanks lee all the way from skegvagas

 

[norwood61]

I don't think that it's just the electrical profession which has suffered with a 'dumbing down' of professional skills. This seems to affect practically all areas of our society. I believe this starts at the academic level. We regularly see every year how students these days gaining A's and B's in four, five or six A levels and the chances of failing a degree are virtually nil. I was asked recently to help an undergraduate complete a history essay, which would contribute to her final grade. On reading it I was astounded at the bad English and complete misunderstanding of the topic in question. I had to advise her that with work such as this she would not succeed. She got a 2/1!!! I think the teaching profession has under pressure from central government had to make qualifications so easy, to meet targets, which basically means there are a lot of people walking around out there with qualifications that, twenty years ago they would have not achieved. This translates into trade qualifications as well, and it must be a concern to many experienced electricians who see young people with so called qualifications, yet who do not have the skill set that these imply.

 

[Graeme Harrold]

I trained originally as an electro-mechanical engineer with the Army, only just retired on completion of 22. When I started the policy was repair by repair and failing that replace the broken bit. By the time I retired it was simply lump changing dumbing down skilled tradesmen to simple fitters. It is happening everywhere as technology advances making jobs easier from the bolt together system...

 

[jase]

So, Let me see if I understand this discussion.
You are saying that because I have signed up to a course provider, which is not a local colledge, doing evening classes, nor do they provide an 'apprenticeship' (I'm 45 years old, so that would be out of the question) that upon completion of my course, which is all C&G certified, that I will be a 'ROUGE TRADER' incapable of installing anyting correctly or safely?
I trained as an electrician in the Royal Navy (Although we were called Weapons Engineer Mechanics then) and after serving my time, I came into the public sector but decided thst I wanted to do other things, Apparhently I was not qualified to be a 'real electrican' anyway,
I now have the opportunity to get back into the trade, and the only way i can achieve this is through one of the (so called Con-artist) training courses, I have a family to support and mortgage to pay the same as you guys so full time education is not an option. When I finish the course I will be qualified to a good standard and I know that experience is everything but with people like you around the experience can never be gained or if we set up on our own we are the lowest of the low con-artists and Rougue Traders. I know that these people are out there ripping the public off , but please don't tar everybody with the same brush, give some of us a bit of credit for the fact that we are capable and want to do a safe and efficient job in whichever sector of the industry we decide to work in.

Sorry if this offends anyone but to be frank, I'm offended by the attitude of some members of this forum.

I think they were talking about the defined scope part of part p, by which a kitchen fitter or plumber can go on a 4 day course to learn how to wire a socket or fuse spur and then they somehowthink that "being part p" gives them free reign to tackle any electrical work

 

[1shortcircuit]

These threads make me chuckle.

That's all I'm going to say on this matter though because the last time I spoke my opinion it upset a PROPER ELECTRICIAN and ended up in him getting banned

 

[pmac10]

I trained originally as an electro-mechanical engineer with the Army, only just retired on completion of 22. When I started the policy was repair by repair and failing that replace the broken bit. By the time I retired it was simply lump changing dumbing down skilled tradesmen to simple fitters. It is happening everywhere as technology advances making jobs easier from the bolt together system...

had a similar experience in raf, as an aero fitter, repair it/make it /fit it (to aero standard obviously) or replace it in that order, when i left it was pretty much just replace it. this dawned on some clever bloke one day and they devised extra training to be designed for experienced eng techs to make sure they 'still had it', was called skill fade so i reckon in that respect i agree with the people who say this is a common factor in all trades, however in my current role in a factory where im employed in an electrically biased role(but expected to do both) we are constantly needing to upskill to maintain new machinery, very similar to what silva foxx posted earlier