Forest Service Training Scheme

Press, Volume CIV, Issue 30783, 22 June 1965, Page 3

Forest Service Training Scheme

(N.Z. Press Association) WELLINGTON, June 21.

In an industry faced with increasing mechanisation and more complex processing operations, t h e demand for greater skills could be considered essential, the Commission of Inquiry on Vocational Training was told by the director-general of the New Zealand Forest Service (Mr A. L. Poole) today. Since the service engaged its first apprentice as a motor mechanic in 1939, the numbers accepted each year had risen and the annual intake in January was up to 15, he said. One of the department's

main problems was the recruiting of sufficient numbers of apprentices annually to ensure that tradesman vacancies could be filled in future years.

Relatively poor rates of pay offered to tradesmen in Government employment and the isolation of many of the department’s workshops and fields of operation were contributing causes of the low late of recruitment. Early Qualification It was believed that if apprentices could spend three years under full-time training, both theoretical and practical, they could qualify as tradesmen much earlier than at present. At the end of the threeyear training period they could spend a year gaining advanced practical experience at rates of pay £5O less a year than that of a qualified tradesman.

This system of training had been in use on the Continent, particularly in Germany, for many years, and appeared in

many instances to have produced a better tradesman.

Referring to the establishment of a training centre at Rotorua to meet the needs

of the limber industry, Mr Poole said that the immediate purpose was to provide facilities for adult and apprentice workers in sawdoctoring, timber-machining and small bandsaw mill operating. Expansion Once this immediate training centre was under way it (was confidently expected that (expansion of facilities for training in related activities would be required. It was planned to extend the centre's activities to include the existing department training for timber trading, seasoning and preservation. With this coverage the development of a sawmill apprenticeship scheme became possible. For the last 30 years no other agency had been geared to teach any of the many skills required in forestry and to meet the needs of its expanding activities. The forest service had to provide its own training facilities in many spheres, Mr Poole said.