Incentive For Technicians

Press, Volume CIX, Issue 32049, 25 July 1969, Page 10

Incentive For Technicians

The engineering industry in Christchurch was in trouble because of the acute shortage of technicians, said Mr E. P. Chapman, general manager of C. W. F. Hamilton, Ltd, at a meeting of the Metallurgical Society of Canterbury.

During a panel discussion on the requirements of metallurgical education in New Zealand industry, Mr Chapman said there was no shortage of engineering graduates, but the shortage of technicians was so acute that graduates were sometimes doing technician’s work. “The difficulty is in persuading people to embark on this long and arduous course,” he said. “We have got to be able to offer them a wage incentive or a better job. Unless the employer offers them something in return it is hard to get them to start on technician training."

Another member of the panel, Mr F. W. Fahy, senior lecturer in mechanical engineering at Canterbury University, also advocated higher financial rewards for technicians—plus social acceptance and recognition of the technician grade. Mr D. W. Lyall, principal of the Christchurch Technical Institute, said the shortage was not peculiar to technicians. New Zealand was short of everyone. Although New Zealand was a very small country it was trying to do everything that the most advanced industrial nations were doing, and the shortage of skilled workers was evident in all fields. In the technician field, momentum was gathering, and certificates were held in high regard by those who knew them. The trouble was that they were not publicised or thrust forward much. Mr Lyall told the society

that the institute was always ready to provide new courses to meet local demand, and if the demand was very tiny there was machinery for providing for national demand—either at the Central Institute at Petone, by correspondence course, or at a centre which had a particular claim. At present metallurgy was available as a study only in the New Zealand Certificate in Science Course at Wellington and Auckland. If it was considered more appropriate in the engineering certificate l course, the Christchurch

Institute would try to arrange it.

Manufacturers felt the lack lof training in metallurgy at the technical level, said Mr Chapman. The need for metallurgy training in the certificate in engineering was felt every day. With the advent of Comalco; at Bluff more industries' would be using aluminium and there would be more need for metallurgists. “There is a vast body of ignorance,” said Mr Chapman, “on such problems as corrosion control, and the need is for technical assistants”

Mr G. M. Thompson, works metallurgist at Andersons,

iLtd, told the meeting that on - the - job training was confined to practical experience. A gap was created by the fact that students were not able to do theoreti|cal training in the principles lof metallurgy. Mr Thompson said the training of sufficient technicians would free professional engineers to concentrate on development and quality control as a whole. This applied only to one or two large companies. The many small industries could also support metallurgists at l the technician level.

The society decided to recommend to the Technicians’ Certification Authority that metallurgy subjects be made available in the later stages of the New Zealand Certificate Course in mechanical engineering. It wants the metallurgy syllabus of the course to be broadly based, and will suggest to the authority that extra facilities be made available, if necessary, at the Christchurch Technical Institute for the teaching of metallurgy subjects.