MEN FOR AIR FORCE

Evening Post, Volume CXXXI, Issue 140, 16 June 1941, Page 3

MEN FOR AIR FORCE

EDUCATION SCHEME

! PRELIMINARY TRAINING i

• The preliminary education;)] traiiv ing scheme for candidates tor the Aii Force under which opportunities I'oi .selection are given to all men of tin right type was explained in an adj:' drefs last night by the Minister of EcUi plication (Mr. Mason). ~'■ The scheme, said Mr. Mason, was ' i one of the ways in which the educa ("jtional facilities of New Zealand were i being utilised to further the war effort. •It was an essential part of Air Forct ! training in this country, and was novi ; being adopted as a model by other parts iof the Empire. ■ In peacetime, said Mr. Mason, it was I not difficult to secure all the Air Force I candidates needed without any special (form of preliminary educational train- | ing. New Zealand's maximum conjtribution to the Royal Air Force before Ithe war was no more than about lOC trained pilots a year, with a similar = number untrained. With a war requirement for New Zealand alone running - into thousands of pilots annually, wth s;, a need for more men for the air crews Vo as observers and air gunners, it became •1, . obvious that the pre-war scheme of ■«'selection did not meet,war conditions. iri The decision was made, therefore, to select the man irrespective of Ins edu■Y cational qualifications and to bring him ii. up to the necessary standard before he - went on (o the ground training school, !.'; Levin. In this way no man of the right "type would be missed. je EFFECTIVENESS OF SCHEME. s:| No man ot the right type who had •„ i completed his primary school course 'was being rejected by the Air Crew ; Selection Committee. He was brought i-1 up to the standard in the Air Force >r j classes or by correspondence while "j carrying on with his ordinary work, : "Already some thousands of men I s j have passed through this preliminary i educational course, and some thouj sands of others are in existing classes i or are being handled by correspondence," said Mr Mason. "Its adoption j by other parts of the Empire is a •■ ''tribute to the scheme's value and i ;eflecliveness, and reminds us that in «i this country there is still that strong -spirit of initiative which from its . i earliest settlement ha? been always ii a marked feature of our people."