Students are finding great difficulties in entering schools with the right training

BY STEVEN KASZAB

Remember all the things you were going to do as a grown up? Adventures to go on, things to do, people to see and help if that is what you wished to do. My parents gave their advice with the hope that I’d become a well-paid professional, someone to look up to, someone my parents could talk about. Lawyer, professor, engineer perhaps, even teacher, police or firefighter.

Statistics are showing us that most of our kids are not performing tasks that they were trained to do in college, or university. US labor statistics say 4.4-15% of recent college graduates are unemployed. In Canada many recent graduates in Western Canada have less difficulty finding work in their skill set, while in Ontario and Eastern Canada finding these jobs is more difficult.

Both parents as advisors, fee payers and students are finding great difficulties in entering schools with the right training to provide them a way. Everyday colleges and universities offer a mix-match to water downed universally generic courses that can provide a student with the skills to receive minimum wage.

Trade schools, medical training, scientific performance centers are limited in enrollment and have super expensive fees. Social sciences, journalism, philosophy, political science and other fields provide just enough training for these students to become excellent basket weavers, but just. The business world needs scientists, builders and trades people, skilled laborers not opinionated bubble wrapped folk who believe they know more than their parents and potential employers.

Your kids are still living with you? Perhaps you need to get them somewhere else saying you’re renovating, but not allow them back into the basement. Works for: Toronto, Vancouver, and Montreal landlords. One of our children has made the world her oyster, while the other seems bent upon who really knows what. They struggle to find their way with all the bumps and walls they will face in this challenge. You offer advice that may be set aside, or considered, but that is all, except perhaps a question of what’s for dinner?

As a child, I could not become a politician as I had far too many skeletons in my adolescent closet, and becoming a gangster sounded exciting with all the money and women for free, but I listened to my folks and studied. Ever wish you’d not listened to your parents and followed your dreams? If you succeeded, they’d be glad, and if you fell upon your face they’d be there too with a helping hand. Love em, or leave em, both parents and kids are our greatest challenges. They care for us as children, and as adults we will care for them.