Electrical trade

[ians]

Yesterday I was showing off my hard work, wooden products I make from recycled wood.

The question "why did I become and electrician" came up.

The reason I became an electrician and not a painter or plumber or carpenter, was because back in the day people saw an electrician as a skilled person (that's what I thought, I could have been wrong) with lots of opportunity and variation in my job.

What happened to the electrical industry

I have seen lawyers do a better electrical installation than some electricians and that is saying something.

[adrianh]

There was a time when apprentices were trained by skilled artisans....

[ians]

I went back to my old training centre where I spent many a memorable day, like a ghost town. I wondered around the centre with not a person in sight eventually I came across a lonely sole, I enquired about the apprentices, I was told they only have 250 in the entire country as opposed to the 250 you would have found in that very centre on any given day. All the teachers have been offered packages and left, now there is nobody to teach and chances are there is no money either. So you need to ask yourself is the BBEEE and grading systems really benefiting "all" South Africans?

[CKhuzwayo]

I am Ckhuzwayo and worked in Elecflex.ElecFlex is a leading membrane switch, membrane keypad,graphic overlay and related products manufacturing company located in East China, We been providing products for global customers in past 15 years.

[Justloadit]

I am Ckhuzwayo and worked in Elecflex.ElecFlex is a leading membrane switch, membrane keypad,graphic overlay and related products manufacturing company located in East China, We been providing products for global customers in past 15 years.

and what has this got to do with "Electrical Trade"?

[mikilianis]

Hi ianns I often come accross young electricians who dont even know what a file is, ask for a half round file and you get a blank look, no training then again, who? is prepared to train or teach, as you dont get the apprentice artisan anymore, a control room operator does a pretrade test course at the local trade test centre, takes the test, passes and wallah we have a qualified electrician. I have been in the training feild and enquired about a post as a instructor at a technical training centre, the post was offered to me but I had to decline as the renumeration that was offered was tantamount to me committing financial suicide

[ians]

I was chatting to a fella master craftsman, who is busy packing up to leave South Africa, I asked him why he is leaving, expecting an answer like the crime....etc instead...

His response, young people don't want to be employed to learn to become craftsman, they want to work to pay for the junk in life.

He moving to an African country where the people dont want to know how much they will get paid, but rather what skills you can teach them.

Which got me thinking, I have experienced the same problem, I have offered young people (lots of them), what I wished someone could have offered me 30 years ago, an opportunity to learn a skill from an experienced tradesman, not only am I a master electrician with over 30 years of hands on experience, I have also operated a business for over 20 years and tinkered with many other things.

From what I have read about Adrian, he also has the same problem.

My mentor told me that when he started out, he walked the streets asking anyone for any job willing to work for free just to learn something, he is now one of the most knowledgeable people I know when it comes to electrical, boilers, hazardous locations...etc, with a CV pages long.

It is sad how this country (I believe most countries) is going backwards, standards are dropping, respect is just a word used by some old folk, a mans word is not worth a penny and life is only as valuable as a cellphone or some other piece of junk or material object.

[TAP]

The problem is the fly by night training centres that do in-house trade test that make easy for unskilled guys to obtain a trade test. Being involved in training in the last ten years I seen major drop of the quality students that a produced at DUT. My personal opinion is today it all about getting a certificate without the proper practical experience and the best paying job.

[ians]

I did a COC refresher course, thought I needed to just keep up to date with stuff, what a waste of my time and money. The person taking the course asked me to step back and let the others try point out the problem created on the test panel, that's when I realised how bad it really is, considering 80 % of the other people doing the refresher course had the same qualifications as I do.

I employed a qualified electrician a few years back, he lasted a couple weeks. When I asked him what "skills" he had ie what type of work he did during his apprenticeship, he told me he worked as a cable gang supervisor while he was an appy. I blame the company and the DOL for this because it seems appys are as supervisors for cheap labour.

[Dave A]

We've actually got to get back to apprenticeships for the trades. There's no two ways about it. What passes for practical experience, even officially, is near farcical.

I've had phone calls going - "please can we accompany your wireman for a day - we just need to be present at a test of a single phase and a three phase installation and we've met the practical experience criteria for getting our wiremans qualification."

It's insane.

[ians]

The joke is that the facility is there and the railways has the funding, I believe it is the skilled people who are missing. Some smart ass came up with a thing called BBEEE and offered all the skilled people packages to leave. So knowing their fate, left.

When South Africa wipes the shit their eyes, they are going to wonder why the rest of Africa is growing with skilled people, farmers and there is nobody left here but a bunch of rich union members and no employees with any skills.

Someone has given me a good idea, they are leaving for Tanzania, he indicated that in that country people want to learn skills, it is a growing economy and they have realise that having skilled white people is not such a bad idea.

Time to start expanding my options.

[Justloadit]

Yep the countries up north have reached rock bottom, now they want to grow, and the fastest way to do this, is to offer good incentives to skilled people, and whilst this is a great option for skilled people, they will in turn part with their knowledge and the locals will improve with time.

Our folks here must still go through the cycle of hunger before they realise what they have lost.

Once upon a time, if you wanted to learn a craft from a master, you had to work for free for a number of years in lieu of the payment to learn the craft.
Our folks want to be paid to learn, and in the majority of cases, their absorption skills is suffice to simply get by on a 30% pass.
This to me is a sorry state of affairs, and the damage being caused by the BEE is still to be felt.

Whilst I accept that there were imbalances to correct, the manner in which BEE was/is applied is not the right answer. If they simply left the situation as it was with respect to the skilled, the situation with in the scales that we have already passed would already be righted.You can only learn skills from some one more qualified than you, and if you look at the population numbers, in a very short period of time, positions would have been filled by qualified PDI's, who would have had the right training to be in the respective positions.

[Yuri]

The opposite is also true. How many 40 year and older electricians can change direction on a single phase motor
How many can phase a 3 phase motor if the terminals are loosen

[Dave A]

Some smart ass came up with a thing called BBEEE and offered all the skilled people packages to leave. So knowing their fate, left.

Actually, it was the National Skills Development Plan (and the concept of learnerships) that shut down the apprentice system. If memory serves me correctly, the NSDP was rolled out about 5 years prior to BEE.

[ians]

The opposite is also true. How many 40 year and older electricians can change direction on a single phase motor
How many can phase a 3 phase motor if the terminals are loosen

I fall into this category, can do both and some