NEEDS OF INDUSTRY

Dominion, Volume 27, Issue 189, 9 May 1934, Page 7

NEEDS OF INDUSTRY

Failure of Apprenticeship System DUE TO MANY FACTORS Reference to the breakdown of the apprenticeship system was made by Mr, T. L. James, M. Com., Dip. Ed., m his presidential address yesterday ro the annual conference of the New Zealand Technical School Teachers’ Association in Wellington. “For a long time we have been bearing about the break-down of the apprenticeship system,” said Mr. James, “and our technical schools have been trying to co-operate with industry to supply the need. The breakdown is due to many factors. In some Industries machinery has taken over a large part of the work, and the methods of production have so changed that tradesmen are hardly required. In others subdivision of labour has been carried so far that the apprentice-has very little chance of learning the whole trade. In others the contract of apprenticeship or the conditions of the award have become burdensome .to rhe employer. “This is too great a problem to deal with fully; but there are one or two observations that may be made concerning the technical schools’ position and co-operation with Industry. AH trades cannot be treated alike.' The schools can quite properly give the instruction required for advancement in position because that requires a study of principles more than an acquirement of skill at the machine; but this is more than training an apprentice:, it s training a future foreman. “The most sensible solution seems to be for the schools to undertake to .give that part of the apprenticeship training that they can do better than industry. They can fill in the gaps that modern methods leave, so that all-round tradesmen" are produced; they can give hand-training and certain types of machine-training; f hey can teach the theory behind the practice; they can provide a general training making for adaptability; and in all these matters they can co-ope.ate with industry, but not until they adopt the methods and machinery of industry can they supersede industry in the training of its apprentices'. “In the meantime co-operation is essential and the school should man its vocational education to increase the all-round efficiency of the future tradesman. "It may be possible In those, trades tn which the training in the technical school approaches nearest to the training in industry to get employers to recognise this by reducing the number of years of apprenticeship, perhaps themselves conducting an examination. The status of tradesman should not depend on a number of. years spent at a trade; but upon a standard of attainment having been reached. If this were so I am quite sure that the technical school trainee would receive all the advantage due in the reduction in time required to reach this standard.”