N.Z. FIRMS’ INTEREST IN MANAGEMENT TRAINING

Press, Volume CII, Issue 30115, 26 April 1963, Page 15

N.Z. FIRMS’ INTEREST IN MANAGEMENT TRAINING

A great deal of interest was being shown by New Zealand firms in management training at the senior executive level, said Sir Ragna-r Garrett. principal of the Australian Administration Staff College. in Christchurch on Wednesday. He said the purpose of his New Zealand visit had been to try to stimulate some interest in management training in the senior executive field and the results had been most encouraging. The Australian college, at Mout Eliza, not far from Melbourne, he said, was established five years ago by 80 of Australia's leading companies These concerns had put £400.000 into the enterprise and in the five-year period about 700 men had gone through the college The aim of the college was to give executives (about the age of 40) from private enter-

prise and Government departments, a better appreciation of the over-all problems facing management. Str Ragnar Garrett said about 30 New Zealanders had completed a course at the Australian college It had been the increasing dumber of inquiries from the Dominion which influenced bun to visit New Zealand, he said.

In addition to Australians and New Zealanders, quite a number of executives from South-east Asia attended the college under the Colombo Plan. The training given was patterned on that at the British college at Henley. Sir Ragnar Garrett said New Zealand also had an administration staff college which ran a four-week course. It was not a permanent establishment although he hoped one day it would become so The basic difficulty was one of economics, he said, as to set up something along the lines of the Australian project was not an inexpensive venture.

Although the college was nearly always fully subscribed by Australians. Sir Ragnar Garrett said he would always be prepared to bend over backwards to help a New Zealander get in if a firm sent him over.

On Wednesday evening. Sir Ragnar Garrett, who was formerly Chief of the Australian General Staff, attended a social function tendered him by the Canterbury Chamber of Commerce.

Today he _will attend a luncheon in the chamber's hall when he will address representatives of the Canterbury Employers' Association. the Canterbury Manufacturers' Association, the Canterbury division of the New Zealand Institute of Management, and the Institute of Public Administration.