Blame Tony Blair's university obsession for UK's skills shortage: Yorkshire Post Letters

It is quite clear to see that there is a massive skills shortage in this country, as we have now left the EU, where employers could just import skills from across the EU. That has now ended, thank goodness, and it is now time to re-skill our own workforce.

This was traditionally done with employers having apprenticeships and part-time technical education in colleges of further education.

It was the likes of Tony Blair who thought that everyone should go to university, so all the Techs have been merged into universities. Yes there is still a need for them but university is not and should not be for everyone, particularly with some of the nonsensical subjects which are studied.

The EITB, which I remember, did an excellent job for students over a year with practical skills which included one-day release for technical education at the tech college.

It let them gain both practical working skills along with a technical education. This provided employers with excellent material for further development into their own companies.

This worked on a grant and levy scheme where employers paid levies for skills but in return received a grant if they trained. The end result was we had many trained skilled personnel.

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