Progress Of Youth Farm Training Scheme

Press, Volume XCIX, Issue 29192, 30 April 1960, Page 9

Progress Of Youth Farm Training Scheme

I7IGHT cadets have been ' J accepted for the Canterbury Youth Farm Advisory Council’s training scheme and have been placed for their initial training on farms from Mid-Canterbury to North Canterbury. A ninth with a year’s practical experience already behind him has been brought into the scheme. This information was given to the quarterly meeting of the executive of the council. Constitution Amendments to the council’s constitution, which will come before the annual meeting in August for ratification, provide that the training scheme will be open to urban boys and those in rural areas whose fathers are not practising farmers. The minimum educational standard for entry into the scheme will be three years’ post-primary education. The term of training will be at least four years, with the first year a probationary period, and it will be spent on

at least two different types of farm. All cadets are to enrol with the Technical Correspondence School and take at least one agricultural course each year for the first three years. They are also required to join the Young Farmers’ Club movement and where possible take an active part in it. Cadets are also to keep a diary or workbook and are to be encouraged to save their earnings. Employers are to be termed “farmer tutors’’ and before they accepted on the approved list they will be asked to submit for record purposes details of the type of farm, stock, crops, acreage and general farm activity. Mature Trainees Farmer tutors are to be made conversant with the fact that cadets are selected mature serious farm trainees who can be

expected to give good service for good tutoring.

The recommended constitution also provides that the executive should strive to see that each cadet in training is visited on the training farm at least once a year by a representative of the council. It is also a recommendation that farmer tutors should be encouraged to reward cadets for good service after the first year. Membership It is envisaged that the council will include representatives of North Canterbury Federated Farmers, the Women’s Institute, the Canterbury council of the Young Farmers’ Club, the Department of Agriculture, Christchurch, Canterbury Agricultural College, Rangiora High School, Christchurch Technical College, the Women’s Division of Federated Farmers, the Vocational Guidance Centre and the cadets committee of the council. The council will also have power to appoint additional members and to invite qualified persons to cooperate in carrying out specific aspects of the work. Hopes for further support for the scheme from Federated Farmers and the Young Farmers’ Club movement were expressed at the meeting.