Quote:
Originally Posted by Azure
One of the biggest issues with getting people into the trades & STEM fields happens in the high school years.
Simply put we do not look at those fields as being 'cultured' enough, and instead push more students towards humanities, social sciences or something else despite the obvious lack of jobs that are available for someone with those degrees.
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The education - and passion - of the great majority of teachers is in the humanities and social sciences. How many of them have any personal background or experience with technical fields or the trades?
This is what I mean by the class issue in Canadian society. Teachers, the media, politicians, public service policy-makers, cultural leaders almost all have white-collar, humanities and social sciences backgrounds. So that’s what they present as success. As normal.
We don’t have any profile or roadmap in this country for middle-class and a career in the trades. The roadmap is that if you want to make a decent living, you need to go to university for four years and then work at a desk. We wouldn’t need to lower standards and push for ever-higher university enrolment if we had other models for becoming a secure member of the middle class.