Trade training changes

Press, Volume CXV, Issue 33873, 19 June 1975, Page 7

Trade training changes

The country’s 12 technical institutes provided the means for a new type of training which would alter the concept of apprenticeship, the liaison officer in Christchurch for the Vocational Training Council (Mr B. R. Burton) said on Tuesday.

The setting up of block training courses for a number of trades and the proposals to establish further such courses should lead to a better, young work force than in the past. Mr Burton said. The new courses enabled technical institutes and employers to plan more carefully how they could train apprentices than they could in previous release courses or night classes which once were an integral part of apprenticeship training. The Vocational Training Council, which was set up by Act of Parliament in 1968, was aware of the manner in which New Zealand industry was prepared to innovate in training, Mr Burton said. “The council has the utmost confidence in the new block courses which will provide a type of tertiary education, subsidised by the State, that once was denied to many young people,” he said. Mr Burton said that the planned investment of more than slom in the Christchurch Technical Institute was evidence of the faith the Government and industry had in tertiarv technical education Since he took up his new post in February. Mr Burton has been working with educational agencies, employers, and jnanagement organisa-

tions and the Department of Labour explaining the wrnrk of the Vocational Training Council which has established 26 industrial training boards in the last five years.