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Education
Importance of
technical education By Nalin Goonewardene
updating technical documentation, and generally assisting their principal engineer or team.
Traditionally, educational institutes and parents worldwide have focussed on post-secondary education leading to a degree. Hence, the value of vocational or technical education has not been appreciated. Within the Construction Industry, sustainability of environment, escalating costs and general advances in technology have lead to new ways of working, with new materials and processes that address these issues. The net result is change in the work place where an increased demand is being placed on capabilities of the work force. At the same time, educational institutes will upgrade their course content to include educational and training material in line with these changes. The demand is for highly skilled and well qualified graduates and post graduates, with an even greater demand for the next level of so-called "mid-skill' level as well as for the semiskilled. The mid-skill level likes to work in active engagement, having both practical and theoretical knowledge partially gained through vocational or technical education. Such people have the potential to enjoy higher earnings and more job and advancement opportunities for which they will need to have additional training and qualifications. For example take Engineering Assistants. In general, their tasks include creating project scheduling and tracking spreadsheets, providing engineering drawings, writing and
Currently, they would need a minimum of 3 years experience on top of qualifications such as NDT, HNDE, NCT etc, to gain employment at top companies. The industry needs these people to acquire more knowledge and education provided by civil engineering degree level programmes to fill the gap to semi-skilled level by understanding and utilizing new technologies associated with engineering functions. Take another example of Draughtsmen. In general, they take ideas, sketches and concepts from designers and turn them into detailed, accurate final drawings using computer-aided design software, primarily AutoCAD. To take advantage of demand, they need to expand their skill levels for example into other related IT subjects like storage/ retrieval of drawings from databases and transmitting drawings over networks. Additional areas could be in how to make ‘electronic sense’ of data and search data to find specific information in line with the latest IT developments in ‘Big’ Data. There is also a great demand for 'qualified' semi-skilled people who need to take advantage of opportunities coming up. Many craftsmen are skilled at their jobs through informal training and apprenticeships but have no formally recognized qualifications. Hence, employers cannot appreciate their skill level. Formal qualifications would change this as employers can be certain about knowledge associated with such qualifications.
The National Apprenticing and Industrial Training Authority (NAITA) in Sri Lanka offer a very valuable method to move them on to formal qualifications. This consists of an assessment and testing process to recognize prior learning, establishing the extent to which competencies have been achieved against relevant National Skills Standard within the NVQ framework. Gaps identified are covered by courses for credit transfer, which can lead to a full NVQ Certificate recognized within the construction industry. This certificate opens a path leading to a National Diploma, Higher Diploma or degree level qualifications for those interested. Whichever level of skill you possess, you will need to be able to: • use critical thinking, innovation, and problem solving skills • make use of effective communication and collaboration skills • demonstrate a minimum level of industry-specific technical skills, in addition to formal qualifications. Now is the time to make your decisions and take appropriate action.
The mid-skill level likes to work in active engagement, having both practical and theoretical knowledge partially gained through vocational or technical education