ABOUT APPRENTICES

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXIII, Issue 7865, 29 July 1911, Page 6

ABOUT APPRENTICES

THEIR QUALIFICATIONS. THE TECHNICAL ASPECT. The managers of the Petone Technical School have communicated -with the Wellington Technical Education Board asking for tho board’s co-operation in holding a conference with the employers in Wellington and Petone, concerning an arrangement whereby apprentices having a two years’ proficiency certificate from either school be paid extra weekly wages during their last year’s apprenticeship. Mr J. P. Luke' said ho would be very pleased to soo such a conference, and ho would like to see tho Trades and Labour Council represented as well. They had to knew- whether the teaching tho boys wore getting with tho limited plants here was sufficient. At present a sliding scale was provided by Act of Parliament for apprentices. In tho Old Country the larger shops did consider some of the time spent at tho Technical School, hut there the equipment was better; they were coming to that hero, however. Mr La Trobe, director,- explained that tho object of the Technical School, was not to make a two years’ course at tho school equivalent to two years’ apprenticeship, bnt tho question of the ultimate efficiency of a student as a -working man. It was not in his first year or two that tho benefit of his training would bo felt. Two years in a technical school was scarcely equivalent to two years’ apprenticeship). The chairman (Mr D. Robertson) said ho was sure they were not going to make engineers out of their technical scholars for many years to come. But he would give the Technical School this credit: A boy who attended a technical school regularly was a better boy than one who did not. "If I give him a plan he knows how to work it, bnt i-ou can never make engineers. Ton must not give boys the idea that the}- aro to be engineers by coming two years to this school or that in a year they can say, T’m an engineer.’ New Zealand pretends to lead the world, and I say let ns lead the world in engineering as well.” Bore from New Zealand did well in other parts of tho world. He had a letter from a Wellington boy who wont to America, where he was doing remarkably well, teaching the Americans how to make motor-cars, and it was at Robertson’s foundry where he learned how to make them. (Laughter). The board agreed to co-operato in holding the suggested conference.