VOCATIONAL TRAINING

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 80, Issue 88, 14 April 1938, Page 8

VOCATIONAL TRAINING

FOR DISABLED PERSONS NEW SCHEME PROPOSED [ Per ’’ress Association.] WELLINGTON, April 12. The objects of a scheme to train disabled persons to utilise their remaining earning capacity were outlined before the Select Committee on National Health and State Superannuation this afternoon by Mr W. E. Leadley (secretary) and Mr J. I. Goldsmith (chairman), representing lhe Soldiers’ Civil Re-establishmeni League. Witnesses described plans for the inauguration of a vocational training centre at which disabled soldiers and civilians unable to do permanent work, and others whose disabilities prevented them from continuing their usual callings, would receive free tuition that would enable them to again take their place in industry. It was stated that employers’ organisations, trades unions, the Returned Soldiers’ Association, and the Red Cross Society would be asked to co-operate. Financial assistance during the first year would be sougiu from the Government and thereafter the amount required would vary as the scheme developed. The league would supply all the materials required, and all saleable goods manufactured would be sent to the league’s shops for sale. The training centre, which would be established at Wellington first, could be extended to other districts later.

“The results should mean big savings to the Pensions Department,*' concluded Mr Leadley, “and we submit that once the many thousands ot disabled persons in New Zealand who arc now living on their pensions were settled in some useful work, the scheme should more than pay for itself in the long run, even if looked at purely from the point of finance.”