TRAINING MEN FOR INDUSTRY

Dominion, Volume 35, Issue 20, 18 October 1941, Page 12

TRAINING MEN FOR INDUSTRY

Protest Against Method

Of Control

A decision to make a protest to the Prime Minister against the practice of removing the training of men for industry from the control of the tecnnical schools of the Dominion was reached at a recent meeting of the Board of Managers of the Hutt Valley Memorial Technical College. It had beefil found necessary, it was stated, to augment the workers in certain industries and, instead of taking advantage of the specialized knowledge and facilities of the technical schools, special trade classes had been formed and the advantages of technical schools ignored. The chairman, of the board, Mr. W. B. Nicholson, said that an important principle-was being infringed—that of placing all education, and specially technical education, under the control of the Education Department. If New Zealand was going to hold its own as a manufacturing country technical education must. occupy an important place. Already the worn of the Petone college was being hampered for want of increased accommodation,- and, though it was quite true that the college had no room at present for many trainee classes, that was not the fault of the management, which had asked for increased facilities in order to undertake this work. Mr. J. McDonald, said it was a wonder that the Teachers’ Institute had not protested against the practice. The ability to teach, no matter what the subjects were, was a science which had to be learnt, and it would be a great mistake if teaching of any kind was removed from trained teachers. It was decided to forward a resolution of protest to the Prime Minister and to send copies to the Minister of Education, the Technical Schools’ Association, and to the Wellington Technical College, which had also dealt with the question..