Honest trades With student enrolment down 16 per cent from last year at the Kimberlite Career and Technical Centre, teaching staff are reminding parents of the value of a career in the trades. The centre teaches skills such as construction, welding, small engine repair and hairstyling. Is skill-training undervalued in the education system or is there now too much emphasis on it? Trades definitely undervalued I believe that skill training is very much undervalued in the education system today. Student enrollment being down at the Kimberlite Career and Technical Centre should be concerning for our society. We need more of the people whose job it is to make our society function ie: the people who actually build and maintain the structures that we live and work in, as well the trains, planes and automobiles we use on a daily basis. Our society cannot function effectively if everyone has an academic education but no vocational skills. My own experience is one where my father and the people who I grew up around were always skillfully building and repairing items. This exposure to these attitudes and skills directly led to me getting involved in the trades. My impression is that there are lots of people in Yellowknife who would like the opportunity to repair and build items, but don’t have access to workshop space and shop tools. Let’s face it, in the average trailer park home or apartment building, where are you going to build or fix that widget? These individuals then don’t have the opportunity to act as role models to younger folks with respect to technical skills. Perhaps one way that the Kimberlite Career and Technical Centre and other institutions could boost enrollment would be to allow supervised access to parents and other people in the evenings and weekends for courses and personal projects. This would perhaps help get the children of those parents interested in a career in the trades. It worked for me. signed  E.D. Agree? Disagree? Can you add more information to the discussion? E-mail - editorial@nnsl.com. You can sign your own name or make one up. Your email address must be real but it will be kept confidential.