CARPENTRY SCHOOL

Evening Post, Volume CXXXII, Issue 123, 20 November 1941, Page 11

CARPENTRY SCHOOL

KEEN WORKERS

WAY OUT OF DEAD ENDS

The men who are taking the intensive course of training at the Miramar carpentry school, under the Emergency Scheme, will probably take a considerable part in the big housing development proposed for the Hutt Valley, for carpenter power is far below immediate needs, let alone the number of tradesmen who will be needed when 5000 more State houses in the Valley are put under way. The R.S.A. is also interested in the carpentry training school as a source of tradesmen for the building of homes on farm lands to be taken over for the settlement of men coming back from overseas service. The conditions under which the trainees enter the course make no restrictions as to subsequent employment, but the men must remain in the industry. Special- consideration is given to men returning from overseas service.

The first 24 trainees at Miramar are now well through their workshop instruction and will go out to practical house building on the State Housing Strathmore block under their own instructors and the Department's inspectors. The second batch of trainees will then begin workshop, training. Applicants are now being selected for this second course. During workshop training the men receive £4 13s 4d a week, and while on outdoor work £5 5s a week. Applications are made through the Placement Office from men not eligible for service.

The Miramar course is for men more or less proficient with tools, but who for one reason or another have come to a dead end and until the training scheme gave an opening could not get further than labouring and semi-skilled work. Most of them were caught in the depression years and the hurdles that wt'.t up then are only now being cleared by the opportunities given by the training scheme.

The next stage of training, outlined recently by the Minister, is for men, not eligible for military service, who have not had practical experience, as builders' labourers and the like, but .who have an for the work. That being so, their workshop training will be longer, at the same weekly rate. £4 13s 4d, and they will then go out to practical house building, at £5 a week, to complete their training. The school for these men is to be at Lower Hutt and is to open early next year.

The outstanding fact of the scheme is the enthusiasm of the men to make the grade, even though, for most of them, it means sacrificing higher casual work money for the time being to gain the advantage of future employment as skilled tradesmen.