|
The knowledge gap doesn't just apply to skilled labor, it applies to several facets of our society. As the baby boomer generation begins retiring there simply aren't as many people out there in the current and future generations to fill the amount of job openings being left behind. Even high school and college graduates right now get out to the real world and there is a large gap between their fresh-thinking minds and the knowledge and wisdom of the generation of workers that are at, or close, to retirement age.
I face this on a large scale in the civil engineering field. In my specialized sector of high voltage transmission line design, the majority of engineers are in their late 40's up through retirement age. There are a few 30-something's and the 20-something's that are fresh out of college are having a difficult time interacting in a constructive manner with the "older" generations to soak up as much knowledge as they can. So, even though the "kids" have a firm grip on math, physics, structural analysis, computer technology and other generic engineering related topics that are taught in their degree field, they don't have the specific application knowledge that they need to be learning from the experienced folks.
I think this same principal applies everywhere. I believe the majority of that falls on the education system because it is only teaching kids what to learn and not how to learn. Until someone smarter and wiser than me can figure out the solution to that and sell it convincingly to this country, we're going to continue down this path of knowledge discontinuity.
|