APPRENTICESHIP

Evening Post, Volume CVI, Issue 48, 25 August 1923, Page 8

APPRENTICESHIP

IMPORTANT PROPOSALS

REPORT OF SPECIAL COMMITTEE

A COMPREHENSIVE SCHEME.

The committee set up early in May by a conference of employers and employees to take evidence upon the apprenticeship question and prepare a Bill for submission to Parliament was presented in the House of Representatives this morning. The conclusions of the Committee are set out as follow :—

1. That the training in the primary schools should be such as to give to the able child a, bias in the direction of academic study and the learned professions or commerce, as opposed to industrial or agricultural occupations. \ That the curricula of the junior nigh schools should be so arranged, as to enable the child to discover its natural aptitudes and develop its natural tastes for manual as well as for intellectual occupations. 3 .That a variety of courses of equal standing should be offered by every secondary school, so that every child from a primary or junior high school may naturally take up the course for which, by aptitudes and tastes, it is best fitted. COMMITTEE PROPOSES METHODS.

f ,poinmittee further recommended the following measures as being necessary to the ■ accomplishment of theee objects:—

(1.) That the curricula of the primary schools should more definitely include handwork and handicrafts as general educational methods, and that" proficiency in handicrafts ahould be expressly recognised in the certificates given to children leaving the primary schools ■ (2 ) that the courses in junior high schools should include, at least one course for boys and on© for girls in which handicrafts .are specially studied, while such subjects should form an integral part of all courses; (3.j. That, in order to give equal standing to all courses in every secondary school, the present matriculation examination ehouW be replaced preferably by an accrediting- system so arranged as to enable.any pupi] who has followed a suitable course to attend the.University a s a matriculated student for further general or professional taming. Leaving-certiftcates .should certjty as>at present, to the total time occupied m the study of each subject taken; and the standard attained. If, however it is not found practicable to eliminate entirely. such examinations as matriculation; it was suggested that th« number of compulsory subjects should be reduced to-^minimum, and a wide choice of optional subjects given, cover mg^a range of manual and artistic as well as purely intellectual subjects. The matriculation examination, if retained, should be modified so that courses leadJng to matriculation might form a suitable preparation for industrial occupation as well as f or the professions. PUPILS' QUALIFICATIONS. The next step proposed by the committee was that, as the pupils l eave school the headmaster should forward a report to the parents, of-each pupil also a copy to the local office of the Department of Labour, giving information as to the education or qualifications and attammente of the pupil. It was proposed further that an employment 'exchange should be established by the Department of .Labour for tha purpose of furnishing information to those concerned regarding the industries that were deemed most suitable to the • capacities of the boys or girls and which offered tne best prospects of future employment. r -. J

In order to ensure so far as possible that boys were placed in callings suitabX to their capacity and affording good prospects: of future employment and With employers who had the facilities to teach, it was desirable that all proposed, apprenticeships should be registered. The proposed Bill placed- this duty on the- Court of Arbitration, with power to delegate its authority in any case to a local committee. It was deemed advisable to authorise the Court to delegate this, and certain other of its functions respecting any'particular trade and district to a local committee. Ihe^scheme should apply in the first place to males only, and to females in such trades and localities as might be prescribed by the Arbitration Court. Tho evidence showed that it would not be practicable to apply the scheme in its entirety to females.' • An important alteration was proposed giving power to the Uourt to require any employer to take the _ proportion of apprentices deemed to be his share of the number required to supply a sufficient number tff future journeymen in the industry.

ENSURING PROPER EDUCATION.

Section (5) of the Bill gave power to order the attendance of apprentices at a technical school. It also gave power to prohibit an employer who had not the facilities to teach from taking apprentices, or power to refuse permission to a boy to be employed in the industry, proposed if satisfied that he was un-' suitable or that sufficient opportunity of future employment was not likely. Another clause gave. power to order the transfer of an apprentice from one employer to another.

The question of the examination of apprentices either during or at the end of apprenticeship was dealt with in the same clause.

Clause 8 provided for apprenticeship contracts to be in writing, and clause 22 encouraged employers to establish their own workshop or technical schools. .The committee consisted of Mr. T. O. Bishop (representing employers), Mr. F. D. Comwell (representing workers), Dr! E. Marsden (Education Department), and Mr. F..,W. Rowley (Department of Labour). , .