| Topic: | Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Poles in Ealing | |
| Posted by: | Michael Brandt | |
| Date/Time: | 28/04/10 20:26:00 |
| Well anyone can call themselves a 'General Builder" and more worryingly anyone can be a 'Master Builder' and join the federation. It is an area where the lack of demonstrable recognition and policing has opened the door for cowboys, chancers and anyone looking for work. Unskilled builders are labourers or Navvies. But with the sidelining of City and Guilds and the status downgrading of apprenticeships, their is no real benchmark for excellence. It really is a British failing. Poland, being one of the better educated and more advanced of the former soviet states followed Russia in making sure that craft skills and qualifications had the same kind of respect and status as that of a nurse , banker or engineer. So a Polish builder aged 35 plus will almost certainly be highly skilled and qualified. It was not all that different here 50 years ago Obviously, qualifications are not essential and there are very many excellent builders who can do a proper job but could not pass an academic exam. The trouble in the UK is that teaching technical crafts has been 'academicised' (new word!) so it is all done on computer and from books. These are hand and eye skill jobs and budgets are so small that they cannot be taught properly anymore. Hammersmith and West London college allowed a materials expenditure of just 35p per day per student to learn to signwrite, wallpaper or plaster. In the UK they teach the talk but not the walk. |