SOLDIERS' TRAINING

Evening Post, Volume XCVIII, Issue 32, 7 August 1919, Page 4

SOLDIERS' TRAINING

WORK AMONG HOSPITAL PATIENTS.

The Educational and Vocational Training branch of the Defence Department has now reached a stage at which classes have been organised in nearly all the hospitals where soldiers are treated, and a number of soldier out-patients are getting the benefit of this scheme, thus improving their chances of making headway in civil occupations. It is estimated that there are now over a thousand soldiers attending classes. No fewer than fifty-three subjects are taught-altogether, the most popular subjects being indicated by the following details of the number of pupils on the instruction rolls on the Ist July. The numbers have no doubt increased since that time. Motor ■ engineering 129 pupils Leather work - 129 „ Basket work 96 „ Wool classing ... .....79 „ Book-keeping..— 76 „ Carpentry _............. 68 „ Embroidery .■.—.. 62 „ Economics 49 „ Splint making „_ 43 „ Be« keeping 31 „ Commercial subjects __ 26 „ Boot repairing ~.: 23 „ Poultry farming : 23 „ Loco and tractor driving 21 „ A number of special subjects are taken by individual soldiers in different centres. They are mainly out-patients who wish to "brush up" their knowledge, or gain, some information which "Will be of value to them in their civil vocations. Assistant vocation officers" have recently been appointed, so that these outpatients may be systematically interviewed and helped. It has been found that the beet results are obtained at the sanatoria, where the patients are nearly recovered, and where they stay for some months. When men are sent to a hospital for operative treat- | ment they are really invalids, and it is useless to expect them to take up courses i which cover a considerable time.