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PLUMBING CONNECTION
SUMMER 2016 19
“Information can be gathered, open days and information
sessions attended, careers advisers consulted, but research
shows most students look to their parents for guidance in
their decision-making on post school study options,” she
says.
“We found that even if a student is more suited to a trade
career, due to parental and school philosophies, students
are being steered towards university and more so with
private school students.
“Employment rates and income are the two main things
that will sell the industry but the challenge is still to provide
parents with information on the wide scope of the industry
and the value a plumbing career can bring for their children.”
Jenine says families with no tradespeople often have
trouble seeing the value in such a career, so it is good to
promote VET classes which show young people and their
parents the value trade careers can bring.
“As career advisors we endeavour to engage with students
to identify what their strengths, learning abilities and
interests are. Some students learn by reading, others learn
by doing. Usually the ones that learn by doing are more
inclined to trades.
“We go through that process in years 9 and 10 before they
do their final subject selection; we encourage the students
who learn by doing to enrol in VET subjects.
“Throughout this process we try to find the best fit for the
student which closely aligns with their abilities, strengths
and interests.”
While the plumbing industry should be working on
increasing the interest among the youth, work can also be
done to help students with the attributes, skills and interest
in plumbing, to find their way to doing an apprenticeship and
not be steered off course by external pressures along the way.
In researching this story, Plumbing Connection wasn’t able
to find evidence of there being a national strategy in place by
the plumbing industry, to ensure it is effectively monitoring
these issues across the sector and sharing ideas, tools and
what’s working/not-working between the States.
There is seemingly no-one person charged with pulling
this together nationally and in this day and age, is that good
enough for an industry of this size and importance?
Typically it falls to the local MPA’s to do the heavy lifting but
they are not overly-resourced and currently there is no formal
national association of the MPA’s that is focussed on such issues.