Book Description
This digital document is an article from New Statesman (1996), published by New Statesman, Ltd. on November 25, 2002. The length of the article is 980 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.Citation Details
Title: Why you can't find a plumber: forget the chatter about graduates: worry about a shortage of people to build and repair houses. (Features).
Author: Jeff Howell
Publication: New Statesman (1996) (Magazine/Journal)
Date: November 25, 2002
Publisher: New Statesman, Ltd.
Volume: 131 Issue: 4615 Page: 26(1)Distributed by Thompson Gale
Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
If you thought dumbing-down was a problem only with A-levels and university degrees, then you should see what's happening further down the food chain. Plumbing, plastering, bricklaying--and other construction skills that used to be acquired over years of apprenticeship and improvement -- have been reduced to the level of one-term evening classes. The UK construction industry is using plumbers who can join pipes only if they have push-fit plastic connectors, plasterers who are limited to skimming plasterboard with a thin smear of "multi-finish" (add water and stir), and carpenters who have never been taught how to sharpen a handsaw (turn off the electric power and they couldn't even cut their fingernails). The once-noble art of bricklaying has...
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