LEARNING TRADES

Dominion, Volume 14, Issue 182, 28 April 1921, Page 6

LEARNING TRADES

DEARTH OF APPRENTICES IN NEW ZEALAND SCOPE OF TECHNICAL SCHOOLS, To the Technical College Board on Tuesday tho Director (Mr. J. H. Howell) submitted the following statement regarding the training of lads in watchmaking’:— “I have been approached on behalf of the New Zealand Watchmakers' and Jewellers' Association in the matter of providing graining for apprentices in watchmaking. There are practically no apprentices in this trade in New Zealand, and the increasing shortage off skilled workers as causing employers gravo concen. The trade of watchmaking is, of course, by no means the only trade that has to face the same, difficulty, and it is surely a matter of national concern, that eome attention should l» paid to the question of securing an. adequate supply of learners. If the present tendency is maintained the labour market will lie flooded with unskilled labour, while tho skilled trades will decline in output and in workmanship. I believe in this trade, as in. others, the sytf-em of co-operation between the school and the workshop that i has been adopted with success in some ’ American towns is worthy of moie careful consideration than it has yet received. in New Zealand. Under this system the trade learner spends half his time in the school and half his time in his employer’s workshop, either week about or fortnight about; and under it the employer profits all the time by the skilled instruction which the learner is obtaining at the school, while the learner profits bol.h on account of his increased: skill, and therefore usefulness, and bv the fact that the period of apprenticeship can be shortened. " “It may be of interest to the board to learn how the system is worked in the printing department of the School at Rochester, New York, which I visited in 1914. The term of apprenticeship is only four years, preceded by a three months’ (trying-out* «mrse at the school, during which the fitness of the pupil for the trade is determined. The miusller printers agree to provide places for a certain number of pupils each year, and at the end of the ‘tryinffout’ course un apprentice enters the service of an employer and thereafter spends alternate weeks, at the school and at the trade, the employer paying full wages for the weeks in school as well as in the shop. In 1914, the weekly wage paid was 16s. for the first six months, 18s. for the second six months, 20s. the third, and 225. the fourth. The last two years of apprenticeship are spent entirely in the shop, although the apprentice is under the supervision of the school and has opportunities of: free education outside shop hours. The system is clearly an economical one from the point of view of the school, for where the plants in the outside workshops are up-to-date, as they have to be in America, it entails very heavy and continuous expenditure if 'the school is to keep its equipment up to standard. The engineering department of the University of Cincinnati has accordingly scrapped all its workshop plants, because the manufacturers of the city itself are now providing the best kind of practice for the indents; and in schools where the cooperative system is taken up the same plan is being generally followed.. "I feel confident that the Education Department will .give cordial support to any schemes that employers may bring forward- for improving the supply and qualifications of • apprentices; but tee first essential is to offer the young learner such remuneration, and conditions of work as will attract him to the trade An improvement in these respects will be followed by an incroast in the supply, as is being shown to-day in the trade of carpentry and joinery. The report was adopted.