College leaders are right to stand up for students and the taxpayer

To The Editor,

COLLEGE leaders are to be applauded for taking a tough stance against college lecturers who take part in another marking boycott ("Colleges agree plan to dock pay from staff who take part in marking boycott", The Herald, February 10). It's about time somebody in this country stood up to out-of-control trade unions.

Following their long summer holiday last year, FE lecturers mounted a similar resulting boycott. They did so because they were dissatisfied with the arrangement which sees the taxpayer fund them to have 13 weeks' holiday per year. They were further dissatisfied that they earn only £40,000 compared to Scotland's median gross annual salary for full-time workers, which is £33,332. And they were even further dissatisfied with their chalk-face workload of 20-odd hours per week. They were dissatisfied then, and they're dissatisfied still. I've come to the conclusion that they will never be satisfied, and that they will always come back for more.

The consequence of last year's resulting boycott by well-salaried, superannuated lecturers was that young people's lives were put on hold because they couldn't complete their apprenticeships. The boycott similarly stopped first-year construction apprentices, who barely earn £6 per hour, from progressing to their next stage and receiving a £2p/h wage rise for which they'd worked all year. Everything and everyone was to wait until the lecturers got more. In the topsy-turvy world of progressive politics it's Mr Bumble who demands more from Oliver. What is in the interests of apprentices, their families and their employers was simply a means to the lecturers' end. And the end is, more. More, more, more. And when they get it, they still want more.

Now they want to do the same thing again. So it's right that college leaders stand up for the taxpayer as well as their students. But perhaps more radical solutions need to be considered. Perhaps the argument for the development of technical schools could simply do away with the need for a college sector altogether. Perhaps the taxpayer could do more with less.

Yours sincerely, 

...

https://www.heraldscotland.com/opinion/24115159.college-leaders-right-stand-students-taxpayer/

The University Myth is Crumbling: Why the American Public is Pushing Trade School.

The myth that getting to university is the apogee of school is crumbling. Across the Atlantic, Americans are realizing that their country won't be made great again by a surfeit of university students.

A young man I spoke to recently—successful, full-time employed, and genuinely happy with his career—made a simple, fascinating statement: 'I'm glad I didn't go to university'.

He wasn't proud or defiant; he was simply content and deeply satisfied with the tangible, skilled work he does. He loves his job, he is good at it, and he holds a quiet confidence that comes from being a competent individual providing a valuable service to our community. For a generation that was relentlessly told a degree was the only ticket to success, his casual confidence felt monumental.

It turns out his personal choice is part of a massive, trans-Atlantic movement. The data shows that the wider public is finally pushing back against the outdated four-year degree machine.

In the U.S., a Workforce Monitor survey from the American Staffing Association found a shocking inversion of advice: 33% of adults would advise graduating high school seniors to attend a vocational or trade school, compared to just 28% who would encourage them to attend a four-year university.

The reasons for this shift are twofold: what I'm calling on one hand "the negative push" and on the other hand, "the positive pull".

The Negative Push is the disillusionment with the academic path as reported this week in Fortune magazine:

 * An astounding 62% of white-collar workers would happily switch to trade jobs for better stability and pay.

 * 55% of workers felt that their training programmes or university degrees didn’t actually prepare them for their roles.

That’s the core problem with the university myth: it's failing to deliver on the promise of career relevance.

But the real story is the Positive Pull—the draw toward working with your hands. These careers offer a constant sense of physical and personal accomplishment. Whether you’re fixing an engine, wiring a house, or laying perfect pipework, the completion of the job is a self-evident success. It's the satisfaction of a job well done and the personal fulfilment that comes from seeing and touching the tangible results of your skill.

Richard Wahlquist, CEO at ASA, summed up the need for change: 

"Americans are clearly concerned that colleges and universities are failing to equip students with the workplace-relevant skills that employers need." 

Even the US Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell recognises the skills gap.

The message is clear: parents, educators, and policymakers need to stop clinging to outdated notions of success and start supporting paths designed for real competence, stability, and the genuine satisfaction of the 'jobs of today and the future world of work".

Sources

One in Three Americans Recommend Trade School Over College for High School Grads, American Staffing Association,  5th June 2025, https://americanstaffing.net/posts/2025/06/05/trade-school-over-college/

(retrieved 2nd October 2025)

Eleanor Pringle, 'The blue-collar revolution isn’t just for Gen Z. Six in 10 white-collar professionals say they’d switch for the right trades job', Fortune (30th September 2025), https://fortune.com/2025/09/30/white-collar-work-gen-z-blue-collar-revolution-career-change-flexjobs/, 

(retrieved 2nd October 2025)

Image Credits

Crumbling brick pillars of the corridor at Mission San Antonio de Padua, California, ca.1906 (CHS-4378), picryl.com, http://digitallibrary.usc.edu, public domain, (retrieved 2nd October 2025)

Mason at Work, Stockcake.com, Public Domain, https://stockcake.com/i/mason-at-work_832285_1089245, (retrieved 2nd October 2025)