TRADE TRAINING

Opunake Times, 2 September 1947, Page 1

TRADE TRAINING

REHABILITATION CENTRES TERM EXTENDED Ex-servicemen training as bricklayers or plasterers at the Rehabilitation Board’s trade training centres will in future undergo a training term at the centre of two years instead of one. This was decided at the monthly meeting of the Rehabilitation Board. Previously trainees in bricklaying and plastering have spent one year at the centre and a further twelve months on subsidy with private employers at award rates of pay. They will now, as before, do 26 weeks in the workshop and 26 weeks in the field, but will also do a further 52 weeks as extension training on State housing contract work. A similar arrangement has long been in force in the cpse of Carpentry trainees. There will be 'no change in wages paid to trainees, who will receive award rates as from their fifty-third week of training. The Board was informed that representatives of the industries concerned were in ’ agreement with the proposal for extension, as was the Housing Construction Department. There were sufficient jnaterials and ample work available to _ ensure the scheme’s practicability. It was proposed that in suitable cases concrete blocks be used in place of bricks and that these be manufactured by trainees during the temporary hold-up. Suitable subsidy arrangements will be made where employers are prepared to take trainees at the end of the first twelve months and before the end of the full two-year period.