£10.5m Programme For Technical Education

Press, Volume CIV, Issue 30939, 21 December 1965, Page 12

£10.5m Programme For Technical Education

The growing demand in New Zealand for technicians and other ikillc workers was a challenge to the country’s technical institutions and colleges, the Minister of Education (Mr Kinsella) said today in a survey of technical education.

To cope with the demand a ‘rolling” programme of capital works for technical education, prepared by the Education Department, was examined and presented by the Technical Institutes Works Committee to the Government for consideration, said the Minister. The programme was approved in principle by the Government on July 1. It provided for a capital expenditure of £10.5 million, £B.B million of which was for buildings and £1.7 million for furniture and equipment. About £400,000 had been spent in the first year, 1964-65; £1.2 million would be spent in and more than £1.5 million in each of the subsequent years.

Mr Kinsella said there were now five technical institutes in New Zealand and a sixth would open next February in Dunedin. At Auckland the remodelling of the Wellesley street block was nearly finished. The existing chemistry and workshop block and the Lome street block were being remodelled and the planning of a new tower block had been authorised. NEW WORKSHOPS

A new workshop block, the nucleus of a new polytechnic, had been planned for Hamilton and a new teaching block would eventually be needed there. A new workshop and laboratory block was now being built at the Central Institute of Technology at Petone and a concrete laboratory and bricklaying workshop were also planned. At Heretaunga new buildings would be erected for technician training and to house the Technical Correspondence Institute. The Government had also approved a building development programme of £1,300,000 for the Wellington Polytechnic. Old houses in Wallace street would be cleared away to provide a site for a proposed mathematics, science and engineering block. Four full-time courses—journalism, computer programming, business administration and clothing and textiles—would be established for the first time at the Welligton Polytechnic next year. TEACHING BLOCK New laboratories and a teaching block were planned for the Christchurch Technical Institute. A second teaching and administrative block woidd be planned later in the five-year programme.

At Dunedin a new site was being bought for the future development of the Technical Institute. The Minister said that technical education was being constantly improved in New Zealand and the findings of the Commission of Inquiry into Vocational Training might result in other far-reaching changes. Separate boards had been fanned to control the Auckland Technical Institute al the Wetltagton Polytechnic. They would be made responsible for one or more additional “sateUlte” institutes

and the first of these was being planned for Otara. It would have day and evening classes in such subjects as carpentry and joinery and specialise in boilermaking and painting and decorating. RECOGNISED IN 1939 *h< in rt« of technical education had long been recognised in the Dominion. In 1939, the Director of Education, Mr C. E. Beeby, had said that if New Zealand’s secondary industries were not to fall hopelessly behind those of the rest of the world, it must find some method of providing the advanced knowledge and skills that industry di became less able to provide.

The decision to provide sep arate institutions for technical education in New Zealand had brought this country into line with technical development in many countries. The creation of the Central Institute of Technology and the first two regional technical institutes meant that technical educatio:’ in New Zealand had achieved a new status and a new independence within the education system. PROPHETIC REPORT

In 1956 Dr. Beeby had prepared for the Senate of the University of New Zealand a far-seeing paper, “Education in Technology,” and had also dealt with technical education for tiie report of the Minister of Education. These papers had done much to clarify distinctions between technologists, technicians and tradesmen and the respective roles of the universities and technical schools. Dr. Beeby had forecast many changes that had since taken place. Mr Kinsella said that the increasing development of technical education had created a demand for teachers with diverse qualifications and New Zealand technical instiutes were competing with industry for persons with qualifications in technical subjects. N.Z. COPING He believed that New Zealand was on the whole coping with the demand for technical education, Mr Kinsella said. Some technical colleges could not do all they would like to because of laek of buildings, but the “rolling*’ programme was designed to remedy this. It was basically the employers’ job to train apprentices in practical skills and the responsibility of the Education Department to provide them with related theoretical studies, together with some practical work.

“We in education are not a bottleneck," said Mr Kinsella. “We have not, I think, ever turned an apprentice away. Broadly speaking, we can for qut part of the training programme, handle as many apprentices as come forward.” APPRENTICE CLASSES Apprentices in some trades were required to attend day or evening classes, qr both as part of their trade training. Subjects included mechanical engineering, motor engineering, plumbing, aircraft engineering, radio servicing, heating and ventilating, refrigeration engineering, painting and decorating, printing, photo-engraving, sheetmetal work, and moulding and casting. In some of the larger technical schools parttime students could take technician courses in engineering, architecture and

science. The Technical Correspondence Institute played an important role in apprentice education, two out of very five apprentices being on its roll. It provided, on a national basis, technical education for some of the smaller trades and occupations and produced textbooks. FUTURE NEEDS Mr Kinsella said he believed that future trends in technology would require flexibility or adaptability on the part of workers. It had been predicted In the United States that boys now leaving the American equivalent of New Zealand’s primary schools would have, on an average, to change their occupations four times during their working life because of changing technological processes.

“There is a trend toward specialisation. For example, in motor mechanics there are some companies specialising in brakes and steering and others specialising in mechanical reconditioning. “The trend is toward learning more and more about less and less and this is happening to technicians as well. This makes them less easily transferable because they are trained to do a specific job which may not be duplicated in the business of another employer. This is beginning to happen overseas and could happen here.”

MUST BE ADAPTABLE Mr Kinsella said that some workers might not be able to depend on a particular skill being wanted for more than 40 years and their ability to cope with the situation would depend on their adaptability and willingness to change. The United States was already experiencing this trend, but the impact might never be felt as strongly in New Zealand as it was there. However, if the trend did develop in New Zealand he was optimistic about New Zealanders* ability to cope with it. “The average New Zealander is adaptable,” he said. “He is ready to give things a go is not scared of taking on something he has not done before and this may cushion the impact. We need more and more technicians. One of the Education Department’s most striking success stories during the last decade has been the growth of technician courses.”