Opinion Vocational Training
Vocation, vocation, vocation . . .
BITA President David Rowell looks at the signifi cance of Crossrail – and refl ects upon the infl uence ‘going underground’ might have upon the career options available to increasing numbers of young people following vocational training.
I am sure many of you will have seen the recent three-part BBC
“As an industry, we need to
convince the brightest and the best that a vocational route can take them into highly skilled managerial positions
”
TV documentary ‘The Fifteen Billion Pound Railway’, telling the story of the new underground railway being constructed across London. This will link the capital’s key employment, leisure and business districts – Heathrow, the West End, the City, and Docklands – bringing an extra 1.5 million people to within 45 minutes of central London. But it isn’t just the huge investment that amazes – the other numbers surrounding what is Europe’s largest construction project are truly astonishing. Work started on Crossrail in 2009, and is scheduled for completion in 2018. By then 10 new stations will have been built along 26 miles of new track, increasing the capacity of London’s rail system by 10% and considerably reducing congestion on the network. There are currently 10,000 people working on the project across more than 40 construction sites, and – hearteningly in these times of high youth unemployment – 400 apprenticeships are being created, with 350 of these already established. The TV programme has won rave reviews and attracted viewers not usually interested in engineering, but drawn by the sheer scale of the project, its impact, and the
22 September 2014
human stories behind the British expertise on display.
VOCATIONAL ROUTE Personally, one of the fi gures that most catches my eye is the 400 apprenticeships created as a result of Crossrail. That’s 400 young men and women choosing a vocational route in career development rather than what has become almost the norm in recent years – the academic route via university. While university obviously has its place, not least for those studying for engineering degrees, it isn’t for everyone. With rising tuition fees leading to increased debt on graduation, more graduates coming onto the jobs market, and fewer graduate jobs available, many young people are looking for an alternative career path. Many employers state that they value practical knowledge and experience above all else. As a result vocational education is once again moving to centre stage as people realise the doors and opportunities such training can open up. Of course not everyone can work on a major once-in-a-lifetime infrastructure project like Crossrail – but that doesn’t mean rewarding and worthwhile careers aren’t available elsewhere, not least in the area of materials handling. How many hundreds of fork lift trucks in how many dozens of warehouse operations around the country have played their part in the materials handling and
www.shdlogistics.com
logistics support for Crossrail I wonder? That’s one fi gure I would defi nitely be interested in seeing. Technological advances in fork lift truck design, the development of advanced warehouse storage and retrieval systems, and new legislation in areas such as engine emissions, mean a new generation of skilled engineers are needed to make it all happen.
BRIGHTEST AND BEST As an industry, we need to convince the brightest and the best that they do not need to automatically choose university as their route to a good career – that a vocational route can take them into highly skilled managerial positions, and without the considerable debt burden that university study now entails. As mentioned previously in this column, as an industry we are getting our act together – teaming up with fellow lift truck trade association the FLTA to create a new apprenticeship structure to meet the needs of the UK materials handling industry in the 21st century. What I do hope is that
programmes such as ‘The Fifteen Billion Pound Railway’ really show people the value of a vocational training choice and how the career it can lead to can be interesting and rewarding – and have a real impact on the economic development of the country as a whole. ■
www.bita.org.uk
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