REVIEW OF WORK

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume 76, 4 August 1941, Page 4

REVIEW OF WORK

EDUCATION FOR AIR FORCE PRE-ENTRY TRAINING Wellington, This Day. A review of the work of the educational service branch for pre-entry 1 i training of men for the Royal New Zeujland Air Force was given by the 1 Minister of Defence. Mr Jones, in a statement last night. Since the educational services started [in January, 1940, it had handled a total number of trainees reaching well into live figures. Of these a total of well ewer 6000 men had completed their preliminary educational course, and had reached the necessary preliminary air crew standard, said the Minister. A- the various preliminary courses terminated, the trainees, both those in classes and those on correspondence, were tested to determine the standard reached. Mr Jones mentioned that in June. 1072 pilots and observers and 419 gunners sat the examination held that month. All of these passed with the exception of approximately nine per cent of the pilots and observers, and 12 per cent of the gunners. In July the corresponding numbers examined were: Pilots and observers, 630; gunners, 177. The Minister said it was still necessary to have many classes throughout the Dominion to handle those trainees who had made application for the aircrew. At present the number of educational classes totalled 76. and the number of signalling classes 92. PRELIMINARY SIGNAL TRAINING An interesting development of the preliminary signal training has been the completion by the educational services branch, in co-operation with the Post and Telegraph Department, of a booklet to be used with the course of broadcast signalling instruction. This booklet gives the text of each lesson, and the trainee can thus follow the lesson while listening in to the instruction. The effectiveness of the broad cast instruction, already remarkable, had been thereby increased. Till recently, the Minister stated, not much pre-entry training had been given to those men enlisted for the ground stair. The interval between enlistment and posting to a training station had been too short to permit of this being done. Now, however, a beginning was being made with the preliminary instruction of men selected for training as radio-mechanics. For these men the two most important basic subjects are mathematics and electricity and magnetism (including radio theory). Classes in these two subjects had already been established in Auckland. Wellington, and Christchurch, to meet the needs of radio mechanics. In other centres where fewer numbers are offering, instruction is to be given by corl respondence. I Mr Jones said that further develop- ! ments of the educational services had been made necessary by the recent Cabinet decision to establish an Air Training Corps in this country. In the lour main centres, and possibly in other centres at a later stage, units of the corps were being established. In the smaller centres the members of the corps had to be given instruction corresponding to that being given to those trainees in the main centres, and this could only be done economically by a : correspondence system. The educational services branch would accordingly handle this portion of the train-