Caleb Bond: The promotion of university over apprenticeships is a classist hoax

SA leads the country in apprenticeships. That’s something to be proud of and it’s time to stop teaching our kids there’s something wrong with becoming a tradie, writes Caleb Bond.

Working in a trade is just as honourable as an academic profession.

• Apprentice and trainee positions surge while other states go backwards
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The tradie drought has, for some time, been a real thing.

Ask any apprenticeship provider how their business is going and they will tell you applications have been falling for at least 10 years – to the point where business simply cannot fill the number of positions they have to offer.

The Master Builders Association has reported a 50 per cent drop in applications in recent years.

But, it would seem, South Australia is experiencing a resurgence of on-the-job vocational training.

Print it on the number plates: South Australia – The apprenticeship state.

A near 10 per cent increase in the number of people in apprenticeships and traineeships across SA – when the rest of the country is going backwards – is exactly the kind of positive news our trades and industries need.

And it proves that we are taking a more sensible approach to training and employment compared with the past decade.

This boom would appear to be driven by a move towards hi-tech and defence industries expanding in SA. So we’re not talking about basic stuff. We’re training people to fill the jobs that need to be filled, rather than the jobs people wish they could fill.

The primary purpose of school is to turn children into rounded, w

ell-adjusted adults who have the nous to be productive, employable members of society.

Many of these jobs, of course, should and must include labour and trade. But a relentless focus on tertiary education has sold vocational studies up the creek.

High school students are almost expected to go on to university study. Many end up taking courses because they feel they have to, being trained in fields that will never yield them jobs.

We churn out far more law students, for instance, than there are jobs in law.

Five years ago, one law firm offered to give students a two-year work placement if they handed over $22,000.

That’s how dire the employment prospects are in law – and many other professions.

While you can rightly argue that university is not just about finding employment, but also about expanding the mind, our universities are heavily funded by the taxpayer.

It’s not the government’s job to help people take arts degrees because they feel like it. We, the taxpayers, help fund universities on the understand that they will produce a strong and productive workforce to keep our country and economy ticking.

When you’re creating too many over-qualified and underemployed people, you’re running that system at a loss.

Meanwhile, trades and industry have been calling out – begging – for workers and, until now, there has been little evidence of anyone taking any notice of that.

Not everyone is suited to university or wants to go to university. No one should feel like they have to take tertiary study when vocational study is also available.

The promotion of university above all else is a classist pursuit that asserts intellectual study and work as superior to and more impressive than practical, backbreaking work.

It’s unfair and simply not true.

There is no hospital or surgery for doctors to work in if no one builds it.

There is no running water or electricity at your house unless a plumber or electrician fixed the faults in your pipes and wiring.

When the Gillard government uncapped university enrolments, it opened the floodgates for people to attempt vocational education regardless of their ability or the jobs market.

Universities have milked it for money, but I’m not sure you can argue it’s had any great effect on the country.

The resurgence of apprenticeships should be celebrated. We should use this opportunity to take stock of how and why we are training young people when they leave school.

We will always need people in trades and industry. We should be driving students towards practical work – not away from it. And fewer applicants means better chances of employment.

It won’t be lawyers who restart the economy.

Follow @TheCalebBond