rjt

That is a really good point to make Kernow, the desire not just that everyone wants to go to Uni but also that they must go if they are to make something of themselves causes huge problems in this regard. Schools and colleges should be doing more to promote things like apprenticeships.

These people can still do degrees as well as they get older as I am doing now with The OU.

__________________
Mr Delors said that he wanted the European Parliament to be the democratic body of the community, The Commission to be The Executive and The Council Of Ministers The Senate. NO! NO! NO!
(Margaret Thatcher 30 Oct 1990)

Ignore List: The Prophets of ST Al the Unelectable.

bite

No they can't if stupid greedy people stop employing them

Zak64

There are allready Romanians here. Yesterday I delivered windows to a building site in London, and the foreman sent a couple of Romanians to help me unload. Both had hardly any English, and it proved easier (well, more amusing/confusing) to use my limited Russian on them. They seemed like decent enough blokes from what I could make out, and were certainly very willing to work.

A few months ago I was working in a plumbers yard and got talking to some of the plumbers about foreign workers. None of them had seen any significant decrease in workload. An established business relationship between say a housebuilder and a reputable firm of plumbers won't be easily destroyed by a few Polish plumbers turning up and offering to undercut. Also householders are reluctant to hand over wads of cash to a foreign plumber, who then may do a midnight flit. So all in all plumbers down here in sunny Borneo (Bournemouth) don't seem to have been affected much.

However, it was reported a while ago in the press (can't remember the source) that the day rate for builders labourers in Portsmouth has dropped by about 50% due to Eastern European labour influx.

And Kernow has made a very good point:
Firstly, not everyone is Albert Bloody Einstein. There are plenty of decent hard working people who couldn't get a degree if their lived depended on it! That dosen't stop 'em earning a living in a trade or vocation of some sort.
Secondly, why are we, as a society so keen on sending youngsters to 'Uni'? This has never made sense to me! If everyone has a degree in 'Sociology' or 'Social Psychology' or some such other tripe, then we end up with a situation whereby a degree is about as much use as a driving licence.

OK, if you go to Uni to study something real, like Biochemistry, Physics, Medicine, Maths etc, then it's valid.

My niece had the great good sense to avoid 'Uni'. She could have gone, but got a good job at a race course, and was soon promoted to course manager. Today at 25 she is on the property ladder, with a modest house in Tewkesbury, has no debt (other than the mortgage) and earns just over £30K PA. Her friends who went to Uni are now far worse off. They are all saddled with £15 to £20K debt, and few are earning anything like my niece's money.

We are about 80,000 to 100,000 HGV drivers short in this country at the minute, and a good Class 1 HGV driver can expect about £14 per hour. How many graduates are earning that?

Meanwhile we have lots of debt ridden useless graduates who are stuffed to the gills with all the PC bilge they've been fed by their teachers/lecturers, and are of very little interest to employers.

__________________
If anyone complains about unlimited mass immigration we call them a racist - it's our culture!

g hall

You've not seen all the Polish (for example) drivers working for less then 14 p h then

__________________
"That government is best which governs least."
"This is a sharp Medicine, but it is a Physician for all diseases and miseries".
"To be "matter of fact" about the world is to blunder into fantasy --and dull fantasy at that, as the real world is strange and wonderful."