TRAINING FOR TRADE

Evening Post, Issue 73, 23 September 1936, Page 10

TRAINING FOR TRADE

In addressing the Technical Education Association's annual conference yesterday the Minister of Education (Mr. Fraser) raised the question of the apprenticeship system in view of modern conditions in trade and industry. "Nobody can claim a system to be satisfactory," he said, "that keeps a boy running messages for six months and makes it possible for the worst type of employer to train a boy" in a few months to do one or two things and to keep him at that until his apprenticeship is almost over." Personally, he wondered if the apprenticeship system were not archaic and if it had not already outlived its usefulness. The pqint Mr. Fraser had in mind, while disclaiming dogmatism, was as to whether the technical school could not more or less furnish the necessary training either as a supplement or a substitute. The question is a most interesting and important one, especially at the present time when there is a distinct shortage of skilled labour in several trades, notably building, due to the break-down of the apprenticeship system during the depression. Linked up with this aspect is the problem of the youth and young man deprived of facilities during this period for learning a trade. At the same time there is the revolutionary change in industrial methods by which the machine does much of the work formerly executed by the man. This process of production would seem, on the face of it, to render unnecessary the high degree of skill in handicraft once required in a number of callings, and to put a premium rather on versatility in labour than on specialisation in one line. In that event a briefer but more intensive training, capable of being given in part in a technical school, might suffice. This lends interest to the proposal of the Minister of Labour (Mr, Armstrong), in yesterday's "Post," to consider the question of establishing special workshops for the training of youth, to which the Minister added that it was probable that arrangements would be made for special facilities to be provided by technical schools and private firms. The problem is not an easy one, but experiments in the direction suggested should enable the authorities to decide on the best course or courses to be pursued.