Auto Companies: Open your own trade schools

Auto companies, I as a taxpayer think you guys have been playing us for
suckers for a whole lot of years. We've been operating your automotive
trade schools for your benefit. This is going to stop.

For the same reason as high schools do not teach Maytag washing machine
repair, they must not teach car repairs. If Maytag needs a mechanic, they
do what's right and hire a kid and teach him how to fix washers and dryers.
If Ford needs a mechanic, they ought to own up and hire somebody and train
him to fix Ford's jalopies.

Furthermore, even after the taxpayers spend themselves stupid on a voc. ed.
auto shop course, the graduates are not fit to go immediately into the
world of work. In other words, taxpayers spend a million dollars on a
shop, hire a couple of highly paid ex-mechanics who teach what cars were
like about 20 years ago, then the poor kid goes to a Ford dealer and
answers a help-wanted ad only to find they want about 8 years work
experience on Ford Fordomatics, preferably all within the last two
calendar years. We're lucky more kids don't hang themselves!

No, the free ride is over, Ford, GM, and Chrysler Motors. You want
mechanics, YOU foot the bill because we're through.

P.S. Parents, don't spend your life savings sending your kids to college.
Outsourcing, factory closings, government cutbacks, and the general economy
means your college graduate kids will be living in your home until they're
40 or you die first.

 

Bunch of crap. Schools should be teaching kids the basics of how
things work. (Physics and chemistry are a good start) as part of the
GENERAL course, and how more specific things(such as appliances,
automobiles, radios and manufacturing) work, in a generic sense, in
specialized courses. Nothing brand specific - but which end of a
screwdriver to hold, how hydraulic and electrical systems work, what a
diode or a transistor does, how to check electronic and electrical
components, etc.
One heck of a lot more usefull than sending them off to university
for a general BA. Skilled and semiskilled trades are ONE job that
won't be easily offloaded to third world countries. Repairs will
almost have to be done locally.

As far as high school graduates being ready for the job market? Forty
short years ago a technical high school graduate could earn his keep
in his specialty, whether electrical, machine shop, automotive, or
electronics.

Sadly, not so today.

 

When you do finally come up with something original, you are so far off the
mark that one has to wonder where yiu graduated.

The first thing you need to do is stop mincing terms.... you start out on
trade schools and then talk about learning washing machine repair in high
schools....

Any educational institution has but one aim... to educate people so that
they may find gainful employment and avoid becoming a burden on
taxpayers.... As taxpayers, we aren't funding just automotive courses....
Look to (in Canada, at least) institutions such as NAIT or SAIT to see the
vast array of courses they offer in different career paths....

Perhaps American Standard should start training plumbers so we wont have to
watch our hard earned money get flushed down the crapper....

The educational system is only part of the equation... if parents have
failed to instill some life basics in their children, many of these kids
will be plain lousy students, anyway....

FWIW, if kids have had good role models, been shown the difference between
right and wrong and the benefit of a decent education system, they will do
well... My 19 year old son has a good job with room for advancement... and
owns his own home.... (no, it wasn't given to him).

If there is a 40 year old still living at home, something is very, very
wrong..

 

Actually I think we need more trade schools of all kinds. The majority
of high school students are not suited to a career which includes at
least four years of college. Much better to have them working
productively with their hands creating and fixing things then sitting on
their butts feeling sorry for themselves.

 

The TechEd schools here teach plumbing, electrical, HVAC, carpentry,
masonry, etc, as well as auto mechanics and auto body. For girls
(primarily), the teach hair dressing, nails, facials etc. as well. For
both they have computer programming,information systems management,
microchip development, hospitality business jobs, and financial planning.

I don't have a problem with any of it. I think it's all useful stuff!

And, like your kids, mine are out on their own and doing fine. Perhaps
the issue of 40-year-old people still living with mom and pop only
exists in some parts of the country?

 

The fact is according to the US Department of Commerce site, for every five
skilled jobs available in the US there are only three persons available to
fill those jobs. As the boomers retire, over the next ten years, it will
only get worse.

The way Americans are buying imports it may not matter since the jobs that
can be done over seas will leave the country. What will be left will be at
Wal-Mart and the fast food joints. Many employers will tell you they are
lucky if they can get an employee who is trainable, will come to work as
scheduled and will stay till the end of the shift, when they do show up.

mike