Competency and trying to maintain standards

sptrawler said:

Another issue that came about due to competency standards was the requirement for lots of pizz ant service providers that popped up to provide the accredited competency module training, that also took a lot of work off TAFE and it is was amazing which people started these 'accredited' training companies.
You would be stunned and it wasn't politicians.

But a lot of vested interests, have made a lot of money out of dismantling the apprentice training scheme of old, nothing these days is as it seems, everyone is pulling a scam even those who are supposedly on your side. Lol

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Yeah, they brought out those stupid part fitter techs certs, they were like 1/8 of the accreditation of being a proper automotive mechanic. No mechanic wanted to work in those four-wheel drive accessory fitting places for cheap labour wages. They had to accredit people with qualifications because there were some incidents caused by unqualified trade people. The problem with people who had those certs is that they did work beyond their scope that could potentially kill someone.

basilio said:

Unfortunately close to spot on. If you want to see A1 scaming and zero training check out your local Private Vocational provider. There may be honest, quality providers there. But then there may also be flying pigs.

TAFE as a source of quality training ? I think that is questionable. More likely than Private providers but I fear also liable to BS and poor quality education.

I suspect the good ol days of apprenticeships in places like the Railways and SEC offered the most reliable route to fair quality tradespeople.

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Depends on what Tafe you went to, the one I went to was very strict, teachers used to fail students for miss spelling words, and something like 90% or more was a pass too. Prior to the mechanical trade, I completed a pre-vocational course in electrical (up to second year trade mechanical fitter) and one of my tech teachers was the guy who gave expert opinion for prosecutions with the Qld electricity board, this bloke was an angry ranger and was as militant as they come. You had no business working with electricity if you had two left feet in his classes. I think the system has gone soft these days, you have to bubble wrap these precious gremlins before they go wild.

TimeISmoney said:

Depends on what Tafe you went to, the one I went to was very strict, teachers used to fail students for miss spelling words, and something like 90% or more was a pass too. Prior to the mechanical trade, I completed a pre-vocational course in electrical (up to second year trade mechanical fitter) and one of my tech teachers was the guy who gave expert opinion for prosecutions with the Qld electricity board, this bloke was an angry ranger and was as militant as they come. You had no business working with electricity if you had two left feet in his classes. I think the system has gone soft these days, you have to bubble wrap these precious gremlins before they go wild.

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That sounds great... but perhaps a long time ago ? I'm not totally disparaging of TAFE. I'd be delighted to hear of /see some high quality/highly demanding teachers and courses. Just not sure that is what is happening in 2023.

So going back to the video I posted on the rapidly improving capacities of AI Robotics. At what point does it become economically attractive to replace $100k a year workers (all up costs) with robots that could work 24/7 relatively indefinitely and have vertical learning curves?
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Did anyone else see "Humans" when it was released in 2015 ? Explores this topic very well. Just googled it and it is on 7+. Worth checking out if you can somehow get over the million ads.

basilio said:

That sounds great... but perhaps a long time ago ? I'm not totally disparaging of TAFE. I'd be delighted to hear of /see some high quality/highly demanding teachers and courses. Just not sure that is what is happening in 2023.

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TAFE is like most of our education systems and actually like most service providers, they have been changed from being based on outcomes to being based on profit.

That profit doesn't have to be reflected in how much money the service makes as an end product, it can also be reflected in how much money is being paid along the way to achieve the end product and that no longer is being measured against the outcome.

Since teaching was removed from teacher training colleges and made a degree the cost of teachers has accelerated, yet the standard of student educational outcomes has dropped.
Similar has happened with nursing.
With TAFE the system has changed considerably and the standard has dropped, also the amount of children doing trades has dropped and the amount of children going to uni has increased by similar amounts.
But no one is prepared to wind back the clock, because many vested interests aren't interested, because there would be loss of money making options.
How many Unis would have to close if we went back to only 5% of students going to uni.
Then the Unis that dropped their creditation to say a certificate, or a diploma, would not be able to charge the same for the course.

The Govt's would have to re start providing services, to give employment to those kids that actually chose to leave school and do an apprenticeship, then all the contractors would spit the chewy because of loss of work, then the media would lose advertising dollars for loss of contractors advertising because they aren't making as much money.
All unintended, or intended consequences, depending on the motive.
As the old saying goes, money and sex that's what makes the world go round and the more we develop the bigger influence they have.

basilio said:

That sounds great... but perhaps a long time ago ? I'm not totally disparaging of TAFE. I'd be delighted to hear of /see some high quality/highly demanding teachers and courses. Just not sure that is what is happening in 2023.

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They're still a lot better than most of those private RTOs in my opinion, like how does 2 hours replace a 38hr module? It's a total rort in many cases, they leave it up to the student to learn in their own time. Have you tried to just get kids to do their homework these days and most of them do trades because they hated school?

basilio said:

I suspect the good ol days of apprenticeships in places like the Railways and SEC offered the most reliable route to fair quality tradespeople.

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In my view dismantling the utilities as they used to exist was the single greatest mistake made in the past 40 years in Australia.

It didn't just double the cost of electricity and in doing so cripple any shot we had at economic diversification.

It didn't just start an ideological war over a subject pretty much nobody had even the slightest interest in historically.

It also stuffed up training and inspection of work.

Put those all together and it's part of the reason for the housing situation among others.

My view - it'll ultimately be fixed, it'll be put back, but it'll take a massive crisis to do it. As in a major war or economic depression, that sort of crisis. Something which brings us to a point where government realises that it needs things to actually work - then it'll take a generation to actually make it work.

Absolutely agree @Smurf1976 , Australia has become complacent in every way because the place is awash with money, that will end I don't know when but it will.