Demand For Better Apprentice Training

Press, Volume CI, Issue 29742, 8 February 1962, Page 14

Demand For Better Apprentice Training

(New Zealand Press Association)

WELLINGTON, Feb. 7. Greater industrialisation throughout the world, and particularly in New Zealand, is causing an unprecedented demand for apprentices and for a better standard of apprentice training, said the Minister of Education, Mr Tennent, at the Hutt Rotary Club today. “Maybe today we are seeing greater awareness of the opportunities which are now presented through technical education than in any previous period. “I am certain of this. There is also a greater realisation than previously among those who enter apprenticeship courses, as well as among employers, that the better education a young chap has before he enters an apprenticeship and the better education he receives during his training, the better is the service he will render later on and the better are the chances of rapid promotion to positions of responsibility.” Mr Tennent said that the advantage of block courses over day release training for apprentices had now become apparent and there was a trend towards the substitution of block courses for day release even in the cities. “One other trend that must be mentioned is the voluntary extension of block courses beyond the compulsory period Apprentices wno have completed three annual courses sometimes attend an additional course by arrangement with their employer and the Department of Labour,” he said. Correspondence Schools

Because of the population spread in New Zealand and. except in Auckland and the Hutt Valley, the relatively small concentrations of industry, the education system had to be prepared to deal with small numbers of apprentices in many places, said Mr Tennent.

One of the agencies developed to meet such a situation was the Technical Correspondence School, the total roll of which—s677—included 3754 apprentices. Its main functions were to fill the gaps in the geographical coverage given by other schools, to provide the whole or part of certain national

courses for which only one centre was needed for the whole country and to publish textbooks that suited New Zealand conditions.

To meet the growing demands of industry. the Education Department had been working for some years towards a new pattern of technical schools, said Mr Tennent. A three-tier system was envisaged, consisting of local colleges, regional colleges and the central technical college. "Originally it was thought that one central or national technical college might handle all national courses, but that conception soon became blurred, partly because of local pressures, especially from the Auckland area,” ne said. “There has always been a national course in painting and decorating at Wellington Technical School and when the National School of Printing was established at Seddon Technical School, the notion of a single central technical college conducting all national courses was no longer tenable. “A tendency can therefore now be discerned towards two concentrations of national courses—a major one at Petone and a subsidiary one at Auckland. This may well be the pattern for the future. though the epithets major and minor may soon be neither acceptable nor accurately descriptive,” he said.