I'm not sure if this pertains exactly to this topic but I do think it has a certain relevance, and after perusing the posts up until now, I haven't spotted it mentioned. Training and skilled and unskilled are terms that are being used alongside things like university degrees, and being pushed to get a degree to get a piece of paper, or secure a better job. What I don't see any indication of anywhere, is the notion of persuing an education for the sake of getting an education. Of course everyone has to work and that should be part of choosing the course of your education, but what has happened to wanting to learn to be able to think critically, to being well-read, to being interested in what is going on in the world? Fewer and fewer individuals take into consideration that part of furthering their education should include helping them develop into well-rounded adults, the people that will be the future. Skilled or unskilled? I think there's a bigger picture that's going completely unaddressed.

I absolutely agree nsaynne, that is fundamentally what it is about I think.

I work in retail management and I have noticed an increasing number of people who cannot give correct change even when the register tells them what to give in change. Apparently, counting coins is becoming a lost art.

BXBarracuda:

There are many times on this site when I realize that different countries have very different views and histories regarding educational and professional qualifications. I can't say that anyone really cares about my opinion, but perhaps it's worth describing how things work in the U.S.

I'm a trained academic, with PhD. Over the years, I've taught many university undergraduates. Here in the U.S., where students typically spent 4 years at a college or university, they are encouraged to major in (that is, "read") whatever they please. It is NOT expected that their majors will, eventually, become their careers.

Most of the undergraduates I have known and taught have ended up working in fields other than their majors. This is standard in the U.S. After I completed my B.A. in Art History, I was hired by an academic research institute, for which I worked for two years -- but it had nothing at all to do with Art History. I know vast numbers of people, former students of mine, who majored in Anthropology, Art History, Economics, Comparative Literature, Biology and Zoology, who are now working for investment banks in various world cities.

These young people, like me, chose to take advantage of university to study whatever appealed to them; and, as I did, some of them will return to school to earn graduate/professional degrees that will feed them into professional careers. That is what university study is SUPPOSED to be about. It gives you the chance to sample a variety of subjects, so that you can decide what might interest you. Or, at least, that is the view in the U.S.

I do realize that in the U.K., people who wish to become physicians and lawyers (whether solicitors or barristers) begin their medical and legal studies shortly after secondary school and successful A-Level completion. We don't do that in the U.S., because we believe that the experience of a liberal-arts university education is required before students are permitted to enroll in a specialized graduate school. The U.K. system allows people to complete their educations and begin practicing earlier than ours does, and there is much merit in that. But I can't help but appreciate our undergraduate tradition and our insistence that students complete it before they try to earn medical, law, and business degrees, and also PhD's.

Ianfranco, the British system allows for both the US style and UK style in the system as you can follow the liberal arts scheme of things and then graduate study in medicine similar to the US or go straight in to medicine which is what most people choose to do. I think it is good that the choice is available.

Ian, nothing wrong with well rounded. The hammering the square peg into the round hole without knowing or caring the impact their decisions have on the people actually doing the work.

As a career counsellor, one of the things i often tell parents is that a Uni degree is NOT for everyone, and that for some kids, an apprenticeship or on the job training is a far better option, and that also, some kids are going to be content to stay in an entry level job if not forever, at least for a long time.
What concerns me most when i look at resumes sent in with job applications, is the complete absence of punctuation, capital letters etc. and with the kids who do jobsearch training with me, the attitude that someone is just going to drop by one morning and offer them a fantastic job - no need for qualifcations, study...it scares me!