The need for a trade school

The Issue: Establishing trade school involving the private sector to build a capable and proud local cadre of trades workers.

Our View: It is most appropriate to begin a program that would grant prospective tradesmen opportunities to secure lifetime skills.

The days of “Job Options Aplenty” has receded with the tide of a once abundant job market. It has also receded with the superficial mentality that trade and menial jobs are the reserve of guest workers.

Jobs have become scarce in the private sector, fueled by the lack of political patronage jobs that once was the holy grail of locals. Such reality check is difficult to chew and swallow especially at a time when 50-80 locals clamor daily on the employment line for any job in either sector.

Perhaps the realization that jobs afford each of us the opportunity to bring home the bacon to the family has finally sunk-in and that the locals are now saying “any job would do”. And for those who are not academically inclined, the establishment of a trade school is perhaps the very venue upon which they can learn marketable lifetime skills that would pull them out of the pits of helplessness.

The idea being offered by the Chairman of the Board of Education Esther Fleming definitely merits serious review and consideration. Perhaps through such trade school, we could successfully instill pride in the local work force that there’s money in the various skills in the construction industry and other trades too. Against the tide of a very tight local job market, there won’t be any room to perpetuate the idea that every Tom, Dick and Harry can occupy the governor’s chair on Capital Hill nor is there any more need for ill-focused policymakers.

We’ve taken a quick survey of privately run businesses here in plumbing, carpentry, and other trades shops. Very few are owned and run by indigenous Chamorros and Carolinians but these are shops that can definitely guarantee quality job performance in their area of specialty. These shops are run by those who have gone through hard work 18 hours a day and however difficult these times may be, none of them has given up rendering a service needed by this community.

The establishment of a trade school ought to be our launching pad to teach trades for proactive indigenous people willing to enter vocational specialties. In the process, they will eventually learn that their specific specialty pays a hefty and handsome strips of bacon they can share with their families for life. Let’s do it, now!