so true and simply said.
even I can see that, and saw it before you said it.
I often wonder if there is more to these things than meets the eye.
If they want to discourage people from going to uni (which is another possibility) why don't they just say they have enough of certain professions etc. note they are helping apprenticeships and trades, and not before time... but its interesting to speculate about possible "unintended consequences" of such moves. (i wasn't going to say any of that, but I have.... Probably won't get to read (too busy) what anyone else writes below.. but it would be interesting to see what is made of my ambiguous comments... they are just a few thoughts I had, nothing more.

...When will you poor simple souls ever learn? Tom Sawyer had no education; in fact, I had no education…Education is totally unnecessary for successful living! Here is a hint for successful living without education; Plunder, cheat and cajole..become a politician…no intelligence, no scruples and no education required!...(and stay out of jail, is also a handy hint)!

Sorry but nothing is free, someone somewhere has to pay for it!
That said, if we were all to follow DD's simplistic advice, there'd be no doctors to patch you up when wounded, and no lawyers to go to bat for you, if you were hurt due to someone else's thoughtless negligence.
There'd be no architects/engineers building our high rise towers, roads and bridges.
No whiz kid, working out just how strong the steel and iron needed to be, to remain standing when the ground shakes.
No technically skilled mechanics fixing our cars etc.
In fact, if none of us had no education, the only thing left as a survival mechanism, would be to go back to cave dwelling and running our food down with a stone on a stick!
Fortunately, the rest of us know that a good education is vital for our own and the nation's future, or indeed, getting a highly rewarding, do bugger all, or make the place far worse, political career.
The jobs of tomorrow will look nothing like today's!
And without good science and maths skills, we just will not be able to get our heads around the algorithms needed to function in this new high tech world!
What this government and the opposition won't try is real tax reform, to end avoidance and claw back the 95% of offshored corporate Australia, and their tax contributions; given corporate tax alone, was what made a so called free education possible! Somebody paid for it!
No ifs buts or maybes!
And getting corporate Australia to queue to onshore their operation is very doable, for pollies who just take the ideological blinkers off, and start focusing on Australia and Australians best interests!
And wouldn't that make a pleasant change from all the incredibly petty point scoring, that is arguably, this lot's only claim to fame!
Rhosty

You shouldn't need a degree in engineering in order to be an engineer.

If universities charge too much, then there are plenty of cheap text-books to read, or cheap engineering courses over the internet or in correspondance, or you could even study in a different country where it's cheaper. Or you could simply sit yourself informally in university-lectures and study the same for free.

If you wish to blame someone or something for the cost - blame the regulations! It is only those regulations dictating "who can do what" that create this inflation of demands which in turn allows universities to inflate their prices and causes many people to waste their life on unnecessary courses, irrelevant to what they actually want to do.

The author does her credibility no good by exaggerating. I can accept that deregulation of fees is likely to cause some course fees to go up but "$100k more" defies belief.

Allison we had engineers long before we had free or subsidised university education. Companies who wanted engineers paid for the tuition of promising high school graduates, with scholarships, or cadetships. They picked only the proven best. Governments paid for teachers scholarships, which is how most B SC & arts degrees were earned.

Of course they wanted a pound of flesh, usually 5 years of service after graduating, a pretty fair arrangement, which meant checkout chicks were not paying for others to become rich at their expense.

I had a company pay for some of my engineering degree, but paid for half of it myself, after we parted company.

I find it hard to see a reason why I should pay for someone elses degree, unless that is as a loan, to be repaid in full, & that should only be for disciplines that are useful to the public.

I can see no reason whatsoever for the public to pay for such useless degrees as political science, & I can see many reasons why we should charge double the cost of parasitical degrees such as law.

With user pays being the flavor of the month in everything real most people need, it is time to add user pays to the higher education industry. It will at least stop so many getting degrees only because the student support payment is higher than the dole, & might even have degrees in tiddlywinks disappear from the list.

according to the ABS, the average annual earnings of engineering professionals is about $100,000, while the average for all occupations is $58,000. So just 3 years on average earnings for an engineer, rather than an average worker, would cover a debt of $100,000. Looks like a good investment to me.

http://www.ausstats.abs.gov.au/ausstats/subscriber.nsf/0/FFD1371A2D70839BCA257AFB000E413A/$File/63060do006_201205.xls

Graduates typically earn much more than non-graduates. It is fair that they should contribute to the cost of their education.

The trouble is, Hasbeen, that employers no longer seem willing to pay for training of any sort, from aprenticships onwards. You are right that someone has to pay, but I'm happy as a taxpayer to take my share of the burden of higher education costs for todays students.

Yuyutsu, I'd like to meet an employer who would employ a self-educated engineer. I presume you'd self-assess too, to rank your qualification?

The current attitude of many employers seems to be that they want to pay the least amount possible for labour - even to the point of importing cheap less-qualified labour from overseas in order to not use more expensive local labour.

It all boils down to what sort of society people want to live in. One that is well-trained and innovative or one where the rich monopolise all the goodies and the poor are kept where they belong below the poverty line.

That seems to be what the current Australian governement wants society to look like.

We live in a society of choices from whether to postpone marriage and having kids to spending money on travelling and buying a new car and putting off the day of reckoning. If universal free adult education is unaffordable now without some one else paying for it, then that tells me that in the past it was unsustainable.

The one thing that I notice in this century is the way so many people want instant gratification. Whether it's plastering themselves with expensive tattoos and piercings or expecting other people to pick up the tab for their indulgences. I can't believe what some people will pay to go to a concert for instance, pay for drugs of some sort or pay for the latest fashion…… Not everyone of course, but certainly enough to make me wonder what their expectations are. Get priorities right first.

Ask 100 people what their priorities are in the way the government spend our money and you will get 100 different answers. There are so many other things also demanded from government however important education is. Life is a compromise and not everyone is going to get to University. Look at your particular abilities. Be passionate about what you are able to do and follow that path. If you are happy in what you do, you will probably be good at it and if you are good at it, you will probably make money. There are so many things in this world that offer opportunities and they don't all start at university. Just make sure you get a good rounded education at school in literacy and from what I sometimes see from university graduates, some didn't achieve even that.

‘morning Allison,

Universities have created and over supply of teachers nationally. In WA there are 800 graduate teachers unemployed. In QLD, of 2012 graduates, there were still 17,000 unemployed in 2013, with similar problems in SA and Vic.

According to BRW surveys, the most valuable degrees are in Healthcare, Engineering, Business, Computer Science/IT, Education, Accounting/Finance, Sustainable Development, HR Management and Agronomy.

Yet The Australian Graduate Survey 2013 shows our universities are still churning out graduates based on subjects focused on volume, or on what students might like to study rather than what might gain them employment.

Natural & Physical Sciences 8.0
Information Technology 2.5
Engineering & Related Technologies 5.3
Architecture & Building 2.6
Agriculture, Environmental & Related Studies 1.6
Medicine & Related 18.2
Education 12.5
Management & Commerce 19.7
Society & Culture 22.2
Creative Arts 7.3

Social, Arts, and Culture is insane at 29.5%. Agriculture and related studies are well below demand at 1.6%, Information Technology is far too low at 2.5% as are engineering and building with 5.3% and 2.6% respectively.

Medicine is an area where huge growth opportunities can be expected as the research grants from the Medicare co-payments become available.

Universities are now less likely to offer such a variety of post graduate studies as the governments ARC directs grants away from such as the endless Climate Change research. Thus reducing the number of Humanities Academics and liberating even more funds.

Arts and Sociology will get a hammering no doubt, as universities are forced to consider the economics of offering too many low value degrees to replace them with high value degrees, but this is also likely to reduce rather than increase costs for such degrees.

This will definitely be the case when universities are required to carry more of the risk burden by covering some of the costs until the student gets a job in Australia and starts earning.

I think the policy fits the problem rather well.

Of course they won't when the government, courtesy of the checkout chick pays for it.

When they needed them they paid, & would again, only when the stock of taxpayer funded engineers started to run out.

The whole higher education system needs a drastic pruning to bring the number of uni educated flipping burgers down to something more intelligent.

Thanks you, Hasbeen,

<<When they needed them they paid, & would again, only when the stock of taxpayer funded engineers started to run out.>>

And if I may add, to Candide: When they needed them and when they would again, they will hire those engineers despite being self-educated and without formal qualifications. Soon they will prove better than their university fellows and be promoted earlier.

Yuyutsu, there are too many Mickey Mouse degrees out there which are not useful to anyone wanting a real job. Many of these students don't have the brains to complete a real degree.

As to your point about getting an education out of books, my experience is that many books as well as the internet are sources of bad information, particularly in the fields of science and medicine.

I have spoken to people from third world countries where parents even have to pay for their children to go to high school, who are amazed at the generosity of the Australian government in regards to education. One Cambodian worker who hoped that his daughter would attend university, was gushing in his praise that the far sighted Australian government even loaned students the money to pay for their degrees. To him, that looked like a very good deal.

It is only because this Allison Orr has lived in Australia all her life, and she has an expectation that the government should give her and her peers money, that she has developed this entitlement mentality.

Are Pilots different in some way to engineers, because they fork out just as much if not more to obtain their qualifications ? They don't whine about getting Government help.

Everyone posting has a point, and few areas of agreement; like parliament at question time!?
Even so, there was a time when students and their parents just didn't pay for their education/degrees! Corporate Australia did, through their tax receipts.
That was before 95%+ of them offshored their operations; when we still were the third wealthiest nation on earth and a creditor one at that!
Corporate Australia paid, because corporate Australia, was the one demanding/needing a steady stream of RECOGNIZED graduates!
We, all of us, are the losers here, and just like big time losers, arguing over the spoils of defeat!
And so unnecessary, when with just of few strokes of a power wielders pen, we could have corporate Australia migrate back to these shores, bringing their long lost tax receipts with them.
What will achieve that, is taking the blinkers off and then creating the world's cheapest and most efficient, simple, unavoidable tax system, where everybody pays something, according to their expenditure patterns!
And 50% of something is always going to trump the 100% of nothing we are getting now, from offshored corporations; and many a giant multinational, most with annual budgets larger than many sovereign nations.
And if we were to once again put Australia and Australians first, we would also roll out the world's cheapest industrial energy.
Just these two, an impossible to refuse invitation for the world's high tech industries, former corporate Australia, and cashed up entrepreneurs/self funded retirees, all of who would, under the proposed system, add very seriously to the tax paying demographic!
Again very doable, for almost anybody, except ideologues, with a almost impossible to cure, extremely severe case of constipation of the brain!?
And doesn't the latter description seem perfectly apt, when applied to almost any self serving Australian parliament; and or, the bulk of the pollies who inhabit them?
Rhrosty.

‘morning Yuyutsu, Hasbeen and Candide,

University Chancellors have been seeking deregulation and more funding. They have their deregulation and the $7.6bn in new funding over the next five years.

Most significant is the deregulation because it allows private providers back into the game, particularly for the TAFE and pre university studies that could potentially benefit some 80,000 students as pathways to university education.

Deregulation will make the market more competitive and focused, this is attractive to industry, particularly for research partnerships which would fund vital post graduate funding. Industry has always funded higher education and tertiary for existing employees, it’s in their interests to do so however, the regulated market has made it difficult for them invest in degrees for which they cannot offer employment.

IMHO this may be a game changer because they have the potential to make the more valuable degrees even more valuable whilst putting downward pressure on costs.

Universities spend some $23bn a year but earn $14bn a year in income from overseas students. Australia needs to focus more on what Australia needs or we will become a big “shop” for others to buy their education

The other day there was a post here by a single mother who had studied for her masters in something or other. She said she had never intended going to work, & earning to repay her HEX fees.

Perhaps an upfront charge will prevent those people from wasting others hard earned money on private study. Perhaps we will value education more if we pay for it ourselves.

An example of valuing it comes from my time in New Guinea.

If a village wanted a school, first they had to build a school house. That done, they had then to build a satisfactory house, [of the village type, not European], for the teacher & family.

Only after this was done would the government allocate a teacher to the village

An example of valuing it comes from my time in New Guinea.

Hasbeen,
Just down the road they build a brand new school for 33 million Dollars which blew out to 42 million, put in a new road, provide two school buses, all for a bout 70 kids on the island.
Teachers living away allowances add up to about 700 Dollars a week on top of their salary & the kids are now five times less competent than their grandparents.
Then you have all the support teachers fly in-out every two or so weeks plus this plus that etc.
When the other school was vandalised to the tune of several hundred thousand Dollars, nothing was ever said about the culprits afer they got caught.
Most high school kids then get sent South to boarding school, flown home for every school holiday plus $25/day pocket money although officially it's called attendance incentive.
Different values of education & more Dollars involved.

Dear Hasbeen,

<<She said she had never intended going to work, & earning to repay her HEX fees.>>

If you want to avoid repaying your debt, then there's a 'better' way to never pay: have a member of your family start a company, have the educated member be 'employed' at minimum-wage by that company and have the professional services of that company be contracted instead to would-be employers, for much more of course.

Recovering the debt from a dead student's estate helps against this type of fraud. Another way is to require guarantees or guarantors who agree to pay the debt if the former student fails to pay it back say within 15 years (such guarantors could also be corporate, as potential employers, or even the university itself in the case of outstandingly promising students).

My son is joining the defense forces next month to get his degree free but I am embarrassed to say mine was free at his age without service. Maybe we can have more community service from the young in a scheme that would give them free education for each year spent assisting others.

mine was free at his age without service
Boomer,
it clearly reflects in your mentality. Nothing should be free apart from life itself & the air we breathe & the water we drink. Everything else we are morally obliged to put in an effort for.
If we want something sooner than we can pay for it then we can take out loans & repay them in time. Education is no different. No-one on the public purse should earn more than 12-15 times the average wage. We'd be surprised by how much we could reduce tax & how much our daily life would improve. Education organisations in particular have to be made accountable. To give corruption something to think about we should have corruption officers on the payroll.

...An engineering degree, the degree my father did for free, will cost as much as $119,000.

Allison, Welfare has been a drain on society for decades, your fathers education being one such drain, although at the time, it was not considered as such.

So, your dad did his degree for nothing, yet was rewarded with what in today's standards would be a half million plus per year salary, for ZERO.

Do you honestly think those on modest wages, who also pay taxes, can continue to be expected to contribute to ones FREE education, so they can go on to be a multi millionaire.

Sorry, but I don't see a debt of $120K being a huge ask when that debt can result in mid to high five figure salaries that can continue for decades and, be repaid over years interest free. Remembering that that $25,000 salary is now more like $400,000+.

Please tell me you don't expect people to get a $400K job for ZERO.

Furthermore, My understanding is that the debt is not repayable until one secures a salary of $55K+.

Please tell me you don't expect people to get a $400K job for ZERO.
rehctub,
Many do & that is now the Abbott Goverments biggest challenge. To change the mindset of the entitlement brigade & their grand & great grand children. It's going to cost parliamentary scalps but as necessity becomes more obvious so will accpetance in the electorate & the scalps won't be scarficed in vain.
Also, the $400K will be trimmed to to less & in accordance with merit.

Yes Indi, and in fact, had the end to the age of entitlement been brought about much earlier, perhaps we wouldn't be seeing the balancing act between funding the likes of health, education and aged care. But, so many people have been willingly accepting the generosity of governments, while giving little consideration as to where that generosity actually comes from, the tax payer, and at what cost.

Well, the time has come whereby the tax payer can no longer fund what's on it's plate, so, tough choices had to be made. It's just a pity not everyone can see that.

But at least most people's eyes are now wide open to the real issues facing our tax payer funds and, if they do happen to reinstate labor, labors hand will be tied as to reward their voters loyalty, more of the same from them will have to be reintroduced.

I think the longer Tony stands by his tough choices, the less chance labor has to regain power, unless of cause they choose to do the same, and we all know thier record of achievement.

Interesting times ahead.

Hope your son enjoys the defense force BOOMER, what branch is he going into?

I enjoyed my time in the Navy, I have a son in the navy, & am about to get a son in law in the army. Some families are suckers for punishment.

After a couple of years on here, I'm not too sure if much of the Oz population is worth defending, so I'm not sure I'd do it again, except to gain a qualification.

There is going to have to be a lot more of this in future. Surely 4 years of uni education, & the student financial support that usually goes with it, is worth 4 years of service after completion.

I'm not sure what productive use could be found for a political science PhD, although 4 years of clearing rubber vine out of northern national parks would be sure to help the graduate learn something useful.

clearing rubber vine out of northern national parks
Hasbeen,
not so fast. We need to sort out the Cane Toads first which are of course a legacy of Science, you know those people who know everything & who always know what's best for us. Somehow I fail to see the benefit to us up here from their brilliant idea to introduce the Cane Toad here.
From my experience Dettol is far, far more efficient to get rid of the toads than millions upon millions Dollars for endless scientific studies whilst the toads are on a permanent honeymoon courtesy of science.

That a university educated person believes that university education was ever free pretty well says all that needs to be said.

It was originally the Labour Government that brought in free university fees in the early '70s, so that lower and middle class bright students would get the chance to go to university.
It was again, the Hawke Labour Party who stopped the free fees and started the HECS fees in the '80s.

My brother went to University of WA during the late '70s and became an Engineer. He started and completed his degree during Fraser's Liberal government time.
As my father had just left my mother and four children, there is no way she could have afforded to send him to Uni if not for the free tuition fees.

I think it will be the wealthy who will be more likely to be able to go to Uni now, and that is a great pity.

It was originally the Labour Government that brought in free university fees in the early '70s, so that lower and middle class bright students would get the chance to go to university.
Suseonline,
Yes and, look what happened. The Labor Govt. wasted billions just to have idiots refined to true morons to the stage where we now have to import brains from third world countries. We're so smart we can't even run our own telephone services & internet, we can't produce anything here anymore because we're so smart. Hell, we're so smart we just let many pensioners live in misery whilst we give millions to the Arts. We're so smart that we have a public service that is nothing more than a sponge. We're so smart that our Judiciary puts more effort into protecting home-grown & imported crims than on our decent citziens. Oh yes, Australians have become too smart for their own good ! A very smart move by our Labor Governments. The wisdom is simply overwhelming.

In previous posts I have always emphasised the virtue of self responsibility and not looking for handouts. Are you saying Susieonline that the education of your brother once your family broke up (I don't know the circumstances ) should be then paid for out of the public purse because your father left your mother with four children ?

...I think it will be the wealthy who will be more likely to be able to go to Uni now, and that is a great pity.

Suze, anyone who goes to uni and passes, is pretty much assured a well paid job. So what's the problem?

Another problem with free uni/tafe, is that so many used it as an excuse to basically, stay at school and not enter the workforce and not contribute to the very system that provides for them.

Just think if uni/tafe fees had been charged from the beginning, at say 10% of ones average industry salary (one year that is) the same system may well be sustainable today. But that's too clever, because many prefer the free ride for as long as they can get it, giving no regard for the tomorrow's of the world.

As Abbott has quite rightly said, the age of entitlement is over!

Yuyustu.
One can teach themselves from books and attending STOLEN lectures!?
I met an Emigrant from Chermany, well that's what he called it, who taught himself to Fly.
His first flight, was one were he constantly referenced a how to fly manual, even managed to get airborne and out over the English channel?
Anyhow, he found himself taking extreme evasive action against frequent flocks of flying french seagulls!
VELL, British ones are never zat curious, stupid or arrogant!
Consequently, found himself hanging upside down in the seat of an open cockpit biplane.
As his goggles dipped below the waves, and nearly tore his head off, as well as forcing him to imbibe half of the seawater in that august body of water.
His last remaining cogent thought was, dive dive dive.
No not because he was submersed from the neck down, but because given his attitude, that would force the plane back into the skies, and from where the water could drain out of him, including a very sumptuous meal of force fed mixed sushi!
The engine must have suffered some water damage, given it slowly lost revs, after he righted the plane, again as a unintended ducking away from some seagull intent on doing him some nefarious damage, or just chasing some of the unwanted sushi?
The loss of revs causing the plane to nearly stall forcing him lower and lower, until his wheels dipped into the water, fortunately the "french" tide was completely out, and there was only a couple of inches of water.
And almost as an unintended consequence of the ducking, he managed an almost perfect landing; albeit, one where his hands were clasped in fervent silent prayer.
I guess you could say, he came in on a wing and a prayer.
Strangely for some inexplicable reason, he lost all enthusiasm for flying, and now only flies if there's no other option!
And on that one occasion, when offered lunch, told the hostess, to throw it straight in the vomit bag as it would save time!
Cheers, Rhrosty.

Great story Rhrosty, I set my first spinnaker that way, just outside Sydney heads on a nice day.

Book in one hand, tiller in another, sheet in another, & brace in another. It is amazing where you find all these hands from, when you need them, although I did have to put my coffee down at one point.

Nothing like a bit of education to teach you to do things "by the book".

My long deceased father tells a similar story HB.
Particularly just after he'd spliced the main brace; albeit, he'd set the mainsail, scrubbed the decks, with the anchor rope gripped between his teeth, as well as working his butt off on the four handed coffee grinder, with his feet.
Given it's polite conversation, you'll have to guess where he kept the broom?
On a more serious note?
Is there anything more exhilarating, than a tail wind pushing a really big kite, while you surf down a Tasmanian bound wave/following sea?
Cheers, Rhrosty.

I on the other hand was not quite as silly as you two, but join you in saying who needs an education to achieve.

I read and understood the theory of sailing, navigation, much about boats, meteorology, safety and the weather before I set foot upon my yacht and sailed solo from Port Stephens to Brisbane. I'd never set foot on a small boat before in my life. Yet I still don't know what's a spinnaker.

I ran successfully my own business and now the corporation I built has been taken over by my children. No business degree.

I have invented and built a mechanical machine to wrap newspapers. In my retirement I'm setting out to manufacture, market and export. No degrees in engineering (Electrical or mechanical) nor marketing degree

I have also become a published author and recognised local poet. I'm starting, in my retirement, a new career as a writer of poetry and literature. No Arts, psych or journalism degrees.

And I contributed to tax all these years, (With no degrees) except for a very brief period when I first faced having to raise two youngsters, alone, did I get any help. Then only a part pension and health card for a brief period when I had no cash flow, thanks to Keating and my lack of foresight.

Yet I can see university education has never been free.

What is wrong with these blind people that they keep harping on about 'free education'?

My education cost me heaps, but no one else anything ... and I always had to share the costs of educating all these academic's and uni degreed people.

That these fools think I should keep on paying for an education for anybody that they say is 'free' is ludicrous.

Dear Rhrosty,

<<One can teach themselves from books and attending STOLEN lectures!? >>

When there's a will - there's a way.

This is the story of Hillel's first steps: http://jewishspectacles.wordpress.com/2012/04/24/hillel-on-the-roof/

Hillel then continued to study and teach, lived to the age of 120 and came to be known as "The Elder". He expounded what is now known as the Golden Rule and scholars believe Jesus to be his pupil.

- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hillel_the_Elder

Most university courses today allow free listeners (excluding usage of laboratories and equipment). Also, there are rarely any restrictions or anything illegal about students recording/videotaping their lectures, then letting others listen/view.

Yes Hobarts can be exciting, & a bit easier with a fully crewed yacht.

I once averaged 14 knots from Ballina to Fosrter single handed. That became less fun after a while. I came out of Ballina into a 10 knot north easter one afternoon heading for Port Stephens. In the lovely conditions I pulled up a 1500 square foot kite, expecting the nor'easter to die at dusk as usual.

It actually built all night to around 25 knots, & I was doubtful if I could get the kite down in one piece single handed. I spent the night surfing down waves surrounded by phosphorescence. It was pretty spectacular. My brilliant Fischer linkage self steering system held her almost all the way.

Just after dawn, off Forster the radio told me a 70 knot southerly buster was coming up the coast, & I didn't have time to get to Port Stephens. I wanted to go into Forster, but did not know if the bar was deep enough. When I saw a trawler heading that way I took my chance.

I undid the stopper knots in the halyard & the brace, & let both go. The kite landed in the ocean to leeward, now attached only by the sheet, & the boat slowed dramatically. I pulled the thing in over the stern, dumping the soggy mess in the cockpit.

The Trawler confirmed enough water, & advised me to follow him. When he found I could only do 5 knots under power, he threw me a line & towed me the 6 or 7 miles in, & allowed me to tie up alongside him.

A couple of hours later, I walked out & saw the sea the southerly had built up, that I would have been belting into, & was extremely grateful to that trawler skipper.

Just as well I'm wealthy & educated, or I could never have done it.

These tales of sailing takes me back to my own days sailing up the east Coast to the Whitsundays and further afield from Sydney on several occasions with similar experiences. I also crewed on South Passage the Queensland sail training vessel as a volunteer Watch Leader. We took 24 school kids out on up to a 4 day voyages to teach them the fundamentals of sailing a 100ft gaff rigged schooner. No winches. Everything was hauled and sweated by hand and it was satisfying for us as instructors and them as crew, to see them develop a rhythm and knowledge when working as a team in hoisting sail, going about, reefing and taking the helm etc together with some elements of coastal navigation.

It makes me realise what an excellent training ground ocean sailing makes for youngsters. It gives a sense of achievement, responsibility for other crew members, character building, sense of adventure, team building, confidence, fitness, respect for the environment, self sufficiency… so many things and all that stuff that can be taken into every day life. Something I think is missing in youngsters these days who lack the discipline to go out and do things for themselves and not expect someone else to do it for them.

Hi imajulianutter. One of the products I used to produce included a small heat exchanger. A simple glass filled nylon 66 housing & a copper innards, it was so efficient many people wanted just the heat exchanger for other applications.

I took a couple to the engineering faculty of the Queensland University of Technology to get an authenticated coefficient of transfer capacity on the thing.

They were raving, they had never seen anything with better than 14% of the capacity of this thing.

You won't be surprised to learn it was developed by a wheat farmer from Jandowae, with just a good old fashioned high school education. He developed the thing because his wife wouldn't go fishing with him on Frazer island, unless he could provide a reliable hot shower.

He used the thing to transfer waste heat from his utes cooling system to showering water. He is still marketing the thing in retirement.

South Passage hasn't changed and things are still done the South Passage way but now is chock a block with 'timmy knockees'.

Hasbeen but the question is did you catch anything when you fished?

You won't get me on Fraser Island nutter, I hate sand flies.

imajulianutter, the days of not needing an education are all but gone now as one can't even get an interview without a piece of paper stating their levels of experience (attainment).

It won't be long before one requires to do a course on how to sweep a floor, or use a shovel in a safe and efficient manner. Don't laugh, the day is near.

Rubbish.

The days of initiative are not dead. And I see many youngsters showing the guts to do as I have done.

It is only the generation of scaredy cat spoon fed children of those who valued the security of public service jobs (because of their life experience of the wars and the depression) who espouse the views you hold.

We who understand initiative and guts know the outcomes of these are more important and way more fulfilling and productive than security sob cringing jobs.

Have you noticed most of those espousing the handout security mentality come from or are influenced by this scaredy cat cringe.

rehctub

mate, sorry, I wasn't including you in the scardy cat cringing mob.

imajulianutter, I live part time and work part time in a mining town.

There are literally hundreds of jobs sites out here, mostly in remote location on farmland and, if you go to one of the hundreds of gate houses looking for work, they simply direct you to a web site.
so you go to the web site, only to be asked what qualifications you have and more importantly, your level of experience.

Now even if you are qualified, quite often you don't even get a reply, let alone a start

Then, if you do get a call up, you are then subjected to a VOC ( verification of comitancy) which, if you fail, you have no job.

Now, if you don't even have a statement of attainment for anything (the new words for 'a ticket) then forget it.

So unfortunately it's not a load of rubbish, as the world you and I grew up in has all but gone, replaced with people who favor a piece of paper rather than expertise because without that piece of paper, chances are you won't even get a call up.

Yep, that piece of paper absolves the "B" grade personal officer, or what ever grandiose title they are going by today, of all responsibility to judge applicants. It can't be their fault if a bloke doesn't live up to his qualifications.

Interestingly this is happening as the bits of paper issued by our institutions of higher learning are rapidly becoming almost valueless in this age of ALL MUST PASS in universities among others.

A mate who has been hiring & firing for the mines for many years told me recently he goes head hunting for such critical positions as grader driver. He reckons grader drivers are among the specialist occupations where competent people are born to it, not trained.

When he needed a finish cut grader driver for the rehabilitation area of a mine near Kingaroy, he brought one he knew was good from Dampier. God knows what it cost, or what the job pays, but I doubt many engineers get as much.

There are still some jobs where skill & touch are highly rewarded. Paper not as important as experience & ability in a few areas at least.

rehctub

why don't they do as I've done? I see quite a few youngsters doing what I've done.
Pick a niche, where people won't work. Work hard and devise systems that take out inefficiency then employ people over award to do this now easier work.
Make some money and invest it back into things that make the work even more efficient.

Quite simply really. Just be smarter than all those fools in secure jobs who just keep asking how you can make money where they can't.

I'm probably not going to buy into the education debate because besides thinking most of you are talking rot why interrupt some great sailing yarns with mundane politics, even if they do involve the future of our country.

One of my best memories of sailing a yacht under spinnaker was in our Adams 10 going back at least 2 decades.

The four of us were taking it to Melbourne for a Cock of the Bay race the next morning. Sailing out of a pretty protected port we debated whether or not to fly the kite. It was touch and go with gusts tickling 20 knots, but fortune favouring the brave and the foolhardy saw us throw it up. By the time we hit the main channel it was 25 gusting 30-35. Lines as tight as piano wire and only just in control we hooted and hollered for an hour surfing down swells with the bow wave rooster tailing 2-3 metres above the deck level.

Then it got a little pear shaped. Anyone who knows the Adams 10 will recall just how thin nosed the sucker is. Great for racing but with the inclination to trip, violently. We had a brief swerve that showed the whites of everyone's eyes but after a brief confab it was decided we were having too much fun to stop besides which we weren't sure we could get the darn thing down without mayhem. So we piled everyone behind the traveller which in an Adams is about a meter from the stern just to try and keep the nose out of the water and went for it. The log maxed out at 18 knots and the needle spent a fair proportion of the next couple of hours slammed tight against the pin. Pure adrenaline pumping delight.

Cont'

Cont'

Then it happened, bow dug in slamming us hard over. I remember holding on to a life line and being completely clear of a vertical deck. Spinnaker, main and boom all in the water. Pandemonium! One over the side hanging on for grim death, a few knocks and cuts and shocked faces. Being the yacht she was she righted herself but we had lost all sense of how wild the weather was and there were some pretty desperate lunges for sheets and halyards before we were back in some semblance of order. We had had our whiskers trimmed and battened down for the final hour in.

I have spent a lot of time on keel boats both racing and cruising but this was a stand out. Probably not the kindest way to treat a vessel but in the case of the Adams 10, with those greyhound lines, it is hard to think she didn't get a real kick out having the shackles off.

I envy you that experience SteeleRedux.

Yachties will understand that "waterline" is almost everything as far as speed is concerned unless you are surfing. Unfortunately my Pugh designed Moon Wind 32 built in steel was too "lumpy" and light and never managed more than 5 to 6 knots maximum even in 25 on a broad reach. Not built for speed, but she would take everything the sea could throw at her, so I always felt safe.

No more stories. It'll bore everyone else !