STATE PLAN.

Auckland Star, Volume LXXII, Issue 76, 31 March 1941, Page 8

STATE PLAN.

TEACHING MEN. ADVICE TO TRAINEES. MINISTER'S APPRECIATION. The first of the Auckland training centres, organised tinder the Government emergency training scheme, was inaugurated this morning when some 40 men of ages varying from the early twenties to the late forties, to be trained in engineering, reported for duty at the Seddon Memorial Technical College. The men were addressed by the Minister of Labour, the Hon. P. C. Webb, under whose department the scheme is being carried out.

The Minister -aid that the Government, appreciated what the principal of the school, Mr. (i. J. Park, and his instructors were doing to help the men in their training. The Labour Department had many problem-; and one was to find work for unskilled men. He complimented the selection committee on the class of trainee that had been enrolled. He felt confident that after 10 weeks of intensive training they would prove their worth in munition production and other essential avenues of national effort dependent on the engineering industry.

The Minister made it clear that the Government was not attempting to create expert litters and turners in four months. What was aimed at w:\s to impart to those being trained sufficient general knowledge of the trade to enable them to readily adapt themselves to the particular work they were railed upon to do when they entered industry. The results of the scheme carried out in Wellington fully justified expectations. A survey made in Wellington disclosed the gratifying rait that in every case the firms which employed the auxiliary workers trained at the Technical College were more than satisfied with the men and their abilitv.

Considerable Sacrifice. Mr. Webb said that many of the men he was addressing that morning had left other employment at considerable sacrifice to help the Government in a crisis and to learn a trade. He hoped they would "get on with the job" arid work in a spirit of co-operation and help one another. "If any one of vou finds that he cannot hiake the grade" his dutv is to got out and thus make a place for somebody else," he added. The instructors wore experts who could take positions at higher ranking than thev had m New Zealand so that the men "to be trained would have every advantage as tar as expert knowledge was concerned. The Government had trained over 1000 men to be carpenters, the Minister continued, and more would be trained. "In the next twelve months New Zealand will have to rely more and more on the skill and energy of its own workers to supply the domestic demand for manv "ticles, including boots." he continued It is confidently anticipated that the workers trained at the Auckland footwea&.trade school will materially assist in maintaining that national production. He was sure that the training scheme would form the nucleus of facili- | ties for training thousands of men when they returned from the war.

Sound Advice. After giving the men some sound advice the Minister told them not to create friction and argument themselves. That would onlv lead bad feeling and dissension and a school was no place fur such when the first essential was the creation of additional skilled workers. The Minister was thanked >bv Mr. Park for his humanitarian style of. talking to the trainees. "Sometimes we have a Minister of Education to address us and perhaps he is not quite so human," he added. He assured the men that the board and staff were interested in the scheme, and he concluded a short address by giving a biographical sketch of each instructor. The men would find that when the machine shop was ready they would have something worth while. The Minister and Mr. Park were then introduced by the deputy chairman of the board of governors of the college. Mr. E. Aldridge, who said that 'what was being done represented a new departure in technical instruction. Adults were to be trained and the first batch of

men who had volunteered to help the Government at a time of crisis had been specially selected. "They were able and willing to learn and he was sure the scheme would be successful.