OCCUPATIONS FOR BOYS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIII, Issue 19508, 11 December 1926, Page 12

OCCUPATIONS FOR BOYS.

APPRENTICESHIP COUNCILS. PROPOSAL BY MR. C. J. PARK. EFFICIENT MANAGEMENT NEEDED The formation of an apprenticeship! council' to deal with apprenticeship matters affecting all industries, and particularly with educational problems, was advocated last evening by Mr. C. J. Park, director of the Technical College, in his annual report at the prizo-giving ceremony.

"Last week the secretary of the Auckland Employers' Association told the Rotary Club in an address that there would be very few vacancies for apprentices in 1927," said Mr. Park. "The cause of the difficulty was stated to bet the quota of apprentices fixed for individual employers and for the Auckland district as a whole. The greatest loss in industry is caused by discontent and uninterested labour. If the schools* were allowed to select for industry those whose natural aptitudes fit them for particular trades, much industrial unrest with its huge direct and indirect losses would be prevented. The quota is an absolute barrier to this.

"The passing of the Apprentices Act seems to indicate that Parliament felt the necessity for an improvement in the conditions of apprentices. It constituted apprenticeship committees, to which the Court leaves the control of the apprentices engaged in the industry. Tho members of these apprenticeship committees are trade experts, and because of this are not well qualified to deal with the educational side of apprenticeship. It seems clear that in addition to the many committees there should be some form of apprenticeship council which would deal with apprenticeship matters, affecting all industries. Questionable Restrictions, "Such a council would decide in the first place whether the quotas which at present prevent employers from taking on apprentices whom they could easily train should be abolished. It is questionable whether there should be any restrictions upon tho number of apprentices. "To an apprenticeship council would also be left such matters as the fixing of the qualifications for apprenticeship m the various trades. We should not then find boys going to a trado for which they were entirely unsuited.

"The New Zealand Technical Schools Board proposes to establish elementary, intermediate and final examinations for most of our trades, and if an apprenticeship council should make regtilations applying certain of these examinations to certain trades I feel sure I,hat there would be a very marked improvement in the nature of educational work done by those who take apprenticeships. Finally, every boy who has gone through any sort of apprenticeship surely should not be entitled to rank as an efficient journeyman. It seems to me that in an int-» proved apprenticeship system we should take on double the number of boys represented by the quotas at present fixed;. But we should arrange apprenticeship courses so that unsuitable and inefficient boys would drop out, in the course of their apprenticeships. Those who finally qualify would be men who knew how to work continuously toward a desired objective, who bad a good trade knowledge, both theoretical and practical, and were men suited to the needs of the trade. Suggests Personnel. "Such educational work in connection ivith apprentices could not be performed by the apprenticeship committees as at present constituted. One feels that an apprenticeship council for' New Zealand should meet once or twice in each year and should consist of persons such as the Judge of the Arbitration Court or the conciliation commissioner, the superintendent of technical i education, tho secretary of the Labour Department, together with other persons representing education and industry. To such a body we could safely leave matter;; affecting apprentices as a whole, and as such matters are almost entirely educational, understood best by those intimately concerned with adolescent development, the Education Department should have adequate representation on the apprenticeship council. "I believe that the defects in the administration of the Act to which attention has been directed recently are mainly due to the fact that thero is no provision under our present system for the experience of educationalists being brought to bear upon broad policy questions affecting apprentices."