TRAINING FOR INDUSTRY

Evening Post, Volume CXVII, Issue 110, 11 May 1934, Page 6

TRAINING FOR INDUSTRY

;An outline of the part which technical schools; play in training for industry and some suggestions as to how the schools might he further used were made by Mr. T. L. James in his presidential address to the Technical School Teachers' Association. Mr. James dealt particularly with industrial training, and in referring to this side of the technical school work we do not overlook the fact that there is another side, While the^ technical schools are giving their main attention to vocational instruction it is desirable ttiat they should also provide a cultural background. The use of leisure as: well as the capacity for work is essential in a full life. "But for the moment the vocational side has the greater attention and Mr. James's'address indicated that there is great scope for its development. He submitted three piain points for consideration: (1) The use of the technical school asa controlling centre for the supply of skilled workers in-keeping wilh the demand; (2) provision for all-round training in 'preparation for the specialisation which, is now demanded in machine industry; (3) substitution of an efficiency test for the present: lime-service qualification of the apprenticeship system. All three points relate to.the apprenticeship system and thq mere presentation of these,points .is prima facie evidence that -this, system can no longer be relied upon to meet the demands of industry, ' Oiu-: present regulation of . the supply of tradesmen is haphazard. It consists of limitation of the proportion; of apprentices ■to journeymen with the further limitation. imposed by the disinclination of some employers to take any apprentices. No ..one can claim' that this keeps supply in step with demand; and it is inelastic, too, in so far as pressure of work in a trade, .leading to realisation that more tradesmen are needed, may have passed before five years' -apprenticeship has provided the journeymen. The method has the defect also that it, looks after the tradesmen but not after the youths. A youth,may find that he ik' 'denied entrance to plumbing, engineering, and other trades in succession on the ground that each trade is full. His opportunities of ' employment lie then in-unskilled employment or highly skilled professions, and some of these may have a ring fence either in limitation of unionjnembership or professional close corporation conditions. It is certainly hard to devise a fair system of distribution of labour; but .'the present conditions are neither systematic nor fair.

The second point made by Mr. James—that an all-round training should be given in. preparation for specialisation—is of the utmost importance in a machine age. The man who performs one operation in a complicated process will do it more intelligently if he knows how the part is related to the whole. Such knowledge is indeed indispensable if j manufacturing processes .are to be improved; but. all-round training cannot be readily given in the specialised factory. A general survey of the trade can -be obtained much better in the technical.school. This brings us ,tq tlfe third ' point: efficiency', instead V6f time-service as the qualification for a traded The tjnie is rapidly coming,,if it has not already come, when industry must consider whether it can -afford to spread its training courses over fiveyear periods without regard to the quickness of the learners. Intehsificatipn of. training and shortening of the time would give greater elasticity in meeting the demands of industry; but such a system would not be acceptable unless it were sound beyond question. The soundness can be proved only by test, and as the practical man is always suspicious of examinations, the lest must be made in actual work under supervision. With such practical tests the technical school, in alliance with the workshop and factory, could take its full share in training.