Quote from: Josquius on May 12, 2024, 06:54:50 AMOh yeah. They definitely exist but in pretty pathetic numbers.I think it works very well with vocational areas - which includes law, accountancy. I'd also welcome nursing and teaching going back to having a purely vocational route.
It is a common populist chant from old folk out of touch with the real world - "you shouldn't just hire foreigners. You should train up local kids instead! "
Which... Aye. Naiive in the extreme. I completely understand why companies tend not to do this. Do it and your less socially conscious competitors can just use the money saved not training to poach any good people you've trained or hire in people ready to go without having to wait years for them to skill up.
I do think this is where it works well with trades and less academic stuff, as very often a lot of the work is just about having an extra body to help with the heavy stuff. Apprentices aren't just a drain as they can be in professional jobs.
QuoteThat would definitely help. I've regularly heard of people looking for apprenticeships and having no clue where to start, basically just asking if anyone knows anyone.Yeah and as I say I think this would be helped by a more consolidated industry. I'm not sure how you encourage that though.
[...]
The women thing is a problem.
My joiner-dad had a female apprentice a decade or so back.
I've heard tell she has had big trouble getting work since with a lot of management saying amongst themselves "so if we have a woman on site then we would need an extra toilet and a special bin for pads and all that. It's just extra trouble"
Considering exactly following the rules is rare in that industry... They're keen to avoid being stuck to them.
Illegal and discriminatory and shit but I do get their reasoning within their own thought process. I suspect the solution can't just lie in threats for discrimination.
QuoteAnd you've slipped into just looking at the higher end.Not really. My point is that higher education is shaped by our economic structure and people are doing vocational degrees because there's demand from both sides for it - and are in every other sector. The reason 75% of students are doing law, accountancy, business, medical professions is because our big exporters are professional services and (as everywhere else in the West) healthcare is also a sector with a lot of demand for graduates. It's not culture and we can't just magic that economy into something else (I'm not sure we should necessarily want to either).
There's tonnes of graduates out there in call centres and other low paid white collar work.
Yes, in terms of overall export value to the economy it's services that really do it. But how many people actually work in this top end consulting place?
There's a whole economy of less immediately rewarding not particularly exportable work providing a foundation behind this, which is suffering.
QuoteIn the UK I don't know anyone (well. Garbon? Ish?) unless it's someone making a big conscious career switch.Universities normally run all sorts of short courses and certificates, same for FE colleges (which are funded by local councils so fucked). But looking up stats and apparently 44% of adults in the UK have taken part in some sort of formal learning in the last three years and 55% of full-time workers are doing it right now.
The cost is a huge part of it absolutely.
But then just signing on to do a course at a local uni is a pita. Admissions are very focussed on this yearly cycle for whole degrees.
Pre brexit I did quite a few courses over the years with Swedish unis. The only thing hindering me being the low number of remote courses that were relevant and I was qualified for (Swedish being a key thing missing) . If it was local and in my language....
QuoteCouncil says punctuation mark must go to suit computer databases, but grammar purists see signs of falling standards
A council has provoked the wrath of residents and linguists alike after announcing it would ban apostrophes on street signs to avoid problems with computer systems.
North Yorkshire council is ditching the punctuation point after careful consideration, saying it can affect geographical databases.
The council said all new street signs would be produced without one, regardless of whether they were used in the past.
Some residents expressed reservations about removing the apostrophes, and said it risked "everything going downhill". They urged the authority to retain them.
Sam, a postal worker in Harrogate, a spa town in North Yorkshire, told the BBC that signs missing an apostrophe – such as the nearby St Mary's Walk sign that had been erected in the town without it – infuriated her.
"I walk past the sign every day and it riles my blood to see inappropriate grammar or punctuation," she said.
Though the updated St Mary's sign had no apostrophe, someone had graffitied an apostrophe back on to the sign with a marker pen, which the former teacher said was "brilliant".
She suggested the council was providing a bad example to children who spend a long time learning the basics of grammar only to see it not being used correctly on street signs.
Dr Ellie Rye, a lecturer in English language and linguistics at the University of York, said apostrophes were a relatively new invention in our writing and, often, context allows people to understand their meaning.
"If I say I live on St Mary's Walk, we're expecting a street name or an address of some kind."
She said the change would matter to people who spend a long time teaching how we write English but that it was "less important in [verbal] communication".
North Yorkshire council said it was not the first to opt to "eliminate" the apostrophe from street signs. Cambridge city council had done the same, before it bowed to pressure and reinstated the apostrophe after complaints from campaigners.
There was also an outcry from residents when Mid Devon district council considered making it a policy to do away with apostrophes to "avoid potential confusion".
A spokesperson from North Yorkshire council added: "All punctuation will be considered but avoided where possible because street names and addresses, when stored in databases, must meet the standards set out in BS7666.
"This restricts the use of punctuation marks and special characters (eg apostrophes, hyphens and ampersands) to avoid potential problems when searching the databases as these characters have specific meanings in computer systems."
Quote from: Duque de Bragança on May 12, 2024, 01:12:25 PMRoger Corman, legendary B-movie producer and director. Helped launch many New Hollywood directors.
https://www.lemonde.fr/en/culture/article/2024/05/12/roger-corman-hollywood-mentor-and-king-of-the-bs-dies-at-98_6671178_30.html
Quote from: Syt on May 12, 2024, 02:31:20 AMForgot that this is an excellent year to watch ....
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