Grade-school children should be taught that trades such as plumbers and electricians are respectable occupations that provide a good living, rather than the notion that a four-year college education is necessary.
That was the consensus opinion of those who participated in a legislative roundtable discussion held by the Manufacturers and Employers Association last month at Top of the 80s in Sugarloaf Twp.
State Rep. Jerry Knowles, R-124, Tamaqua, said a series of hearings by the House Policy Committee all over the state are showing there is a lack of people trained in the trades because they've been conditioned to go to college.
"We told our kids you have to go to college if you want to be successful," Mr. Knowles said. "As a result, we don't have plumbers and electricians. There's nothing wrong with being an electrician. We've got kids graduating from college, who go away, find out they love this area, and have degrees where they can't get jobs here."
Mr. Knowles said kids becoming teachers is a good example.
"We pump out 15,000 school teachers every year," Mr. Knowles said. "There are jobs for about 25 percent of them, which means they (the other 75 percent) have to go into another area of working or leave the area."
State Rep. Mike Tobash, R-125, Pottsville, said he learned of a specific case at the hearing the Policy Committee held in Jim Thorpe.
"The hearing in (the district of state Rep. Doyle Heffley, R-122, Lower Towamensing Twp.) was an eye-opener for me," Mr. Tobash said. "Unemployment in Carbon County is 9.9 percent. Kovatch fire equipment said their problem was they can't get a skilled, drug-free workforce. The vo-tech just spent $20 million improving their facility, and can't get students in their program. We have a quality employer who's looking for skilled workers, and an educational facility that can train those people, and we can't make those things meet up. We have a dynamic in this commonwealth, and in this country, where the stigma for being unemployed is better than the stigma of having a high-paying, blue-collar occupation."
Jack Hallick, human resources manager for Michael Foods, Klingerstown, Schuylkill County, a Minnesota-based food processing firm that distributes egg products, refrigerated grocery and potato products, said changing the stigma has to start with young kids.
"If we don't get to the kid at a young age, in grade school, we're still going to be talking about this 10, 20 years from now," Mr. Hallick said.
State Rep. Tarah Toohil, R-116, Butler Twp., said the education formula we have, starting in kindergarten, has to change.
"We look at manufacturing jobs like they're these dirty jobs. We don't want our kids to have these jobs," Ms. Toohil said. This is a stigma parents push on their children. You can make $100,000 a year for being a mechanic. We need to start making these resources available here to our children, and exposing them to these things so they can pick (the trades)."
State Rep. Eddie Day Pashinski, D-121, Wilkes-Barre, said needing trades-trained people doesn't mean abandoning four-year degrees altogether, but suggested vocational education programs be brought back into the high schools.
"The vo-tech systems were changed because it was felt that it would be more economical to have one vo-tech, because not that many kids were involved in that technical training in school, because the demand then was for a four-year degree because there were more jobs available," Mr. Pashinski said. "That demand has begun to switch. Therefore, we have to educate earlier so the kids know being a plumber is a very honorable profession, and you can become a very successful person."
Darlene Robbins, MAEA president, said the Your Employability Skills (YES) program, which MAEA administers, teachers high school seniors the soft skills - reporting for work on time and dressing properly - are taught, along with "career education with tours, and they have to pass a drug test."
Some 320 employers participate in the program in Northeastern Pennsylvania
"The whole foundation of the YES program is to make sure our kids in our local schools are aware of the opportunities that are available," said state Sen. David Argall, R-29, Tamaqua. "Maybe their parents or guidance counselors don't get it, but we have to make sure the students do."
Ms .Toohil said students should also be made aware of career possibilities in the state's two biggest industries.
"The thing that was most eye-opening to me from Rep. Heffley's jobs hearing was that the number one and two industries in Pennsylvania are agriculture, and tourism, two things that are right beneath our feet, and we don't expose our children to them at all," Ms. Toohil said.
"They could have a lifetime career here. We're trying to support our farmers, Pennsylvania foods. These are things we could work so much harder on. If we work in a partnership - the Legislature, education and manufacturing - I think we will have great success."
Contact the writer: jdino@standardspeaker.com