this is happening everywhere and started when I was a teen

Its something I feel strongly about as well as it caused me a lot of hassle in my youth..

Although I may come across as the sort of chap who has “loads of degrees etc” and I do have good O-level and GCSE grades, I completely fucking loathe exams and formal academic study.

By A level time I was far more interested in doing stuff than spending any more time in college, and was forced into studying a scientific rather than creative discipline as multimedia had not been invented and was never accepted as “real study” .

Everything I know about computers, technology etc I taught myself; I did not last long in University because I was doing certain stuff with the Internet (in 1991!) which was not accepted in the course [the net was not officially released to non-academics until 1994 or so]

a certain basic level of literacy and numeracy is required for the trades (such as to calculate materials required, to assess energy requirements / output to select the correct infrastructure items such as boilers) but surely a college could also teach that as well as the practical aspect..

another problem is despite seemingly high prices consumers (and the privatisation of energy and water utilities which has made them downsize their apprentice training schemes) have driven down prices and lead times for projects to a level where many firms can no longer afford to train an apprentice like they used to, so this job has been passed on to the colleges.

andthere is this culture that nobody is worth anything unless you have sat an exam – there is an artificially created market in “pseudo academic qualifications” which serve noone other than further and higher education institutions.

TBH I reckon it is also brinigng the wrong sort of people in to trades, some are going to think they are “better than” the paying customer and only do work for the money rather than the satisfaction of helping someone make get the best from their essential utility services and make their homes a better place.

IME there are already some fairly robust trade association assesment schemes for plumbers; and the CORGI training for gas safety is (rightly) far from trivial.

there is too much burden of exams on young people now anyway. I am hardly surprised many are on anti-depressants etc…