EARLIER this year, a TV commercial entitled “A Tricky Chat” caught the attention of viewers in New Zealand. It was about a son revealing to his parents his decision not to pursue a university qualification but instead become a “tradie,” the term used for those who work in the construction sector. The father tells the son to instead follow his profession in accountancy, to which the young one replies, “I will have a qualification.”
The advertisement was made for the Building Construction Industry Training Organization to correct the wrong notion that a tradie is a dead-end job, rather it is a decent and important profession. It also addresses the need for an extra 57,600 tradies by 2026.
Already the Labor government is reforming New Zealand’s vocational training sector by establishing a national system of vocational education and training. The shortage in manpower is real and continues to impact the growth of the construction sector. Even as the government has been appropriating money in institutes of technology and polytechnics, the enrollment has not increased; rather this has fallen.
The Philippines has the Technical Education and Skills Development Authority (Tesda) founded in 1994 that provides direction, policies, programs and standards towards quality technical education and skills development. While many of its graduates have secured jobs within the Philippines, Tesda seems to have become the “go-to” institution for those wanting to get employed overseas.
With the inclination of media and society to celebrate successes in the Bar and professional licensure examinations, youths would prefer to get degrees in the university than settle for a qualification from Tesda or similar institutions. You never read about top graduates in welding, plumbing, automotive, dressmaking or visual graphic design. But truly, these tradies are as important as doctors, lawyers, accountants, nurses or engineers. There is need for people to change their views on these skilled individuals.
A CNBC article entitled “The Future of Work Won’t Be About College Degrees, It Will Be About Job Skills” by Upwork CEO Stephanie Kasriel says: “Too often, degrees are still thought of as lifelong stamps of professional competency. They tend to create a false sense of security, perpetuating the illusion that work—and the knowledge it requires—is static. It’s not.”
Which brings me to a press release I received from ACTS-OFW that encourages returning overseas Filipino workers who are not bachelor’s degree holders and who wish to acquire new skills to avail themselves of government’s tuition-free technical vocational education and training (TVET) programs that had been allotted P3.9 billion in 2019. Tradie, anyone?