[Varley]

I cannot agree entirely. Obviously one would want a joiner to be adequate in both learning and practice. However practice and improvement one hopes in that practise is part of what being on the job is all about whereas gaining the underpinning knowledge is something usually and certainly more easily done in the classroom from where, one hopes, released on unsuspecting machinery is not allowed unless tested. Given two options of unschooled but trained to schooled but untrained I would choose the latter. Experience we have always had available in spades and expect it to be imparted with the wage packet.

Were the level of learning required to be a good technician difficult then yours truly would not have been that thing. Whatever depth those essentials may have to be learned is not the point the key is in the word essential. I like to think the technician is the one with a wide if not enormously deep knowledge of the theory and the engineer one who has a deep but specialised knowledge. The same area under the curve but a different shape. Both fully equal to the jobs just not the same job. Also the quip. A good technician is left to run and maintain when the engineer is 'gone on' however well or badly his last job turned out.