Practical Skills for Life Canadian high schools should do considerably more to teach the everyday skills young people will actually need; many schools already offer shop class or cooking, and some teach basic budgeting, so why not add simple home and car maintenance? A teenager who can solve an equation should also be able to change a flat tire or stop a dripping tap. The reasoning is straightforward: today's graduates move into apartments and first homes with no idea how to handle the small repairs that come up, so they end up paying others for jobs they could easily do themselves, and to save money and gain confidence, high school students need to learn basic maintenance.

I raised this with a school trustee, and she said it would smack of old-fashioned thinking: "Our job is to prepare students for university and skilled careers, not to turn out a generation of part-time handymen." But shouldn't every capable adult be able to look after a home without calling for help over every little thing, and what is so old-fashioned about being self-reliant?