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(c) Technical Training.—The following Technical Training Schools were set up on the outbreak of war to provide maintenance and other specialist personnel to meet war requirements :— (i) A Recruit Training Depot was formed at Ohakea on the 20th September, 1939, to provide all recruits enlisted for technical training with a thorough grounding in drill and discipline. This unit moved to Weraroa on the 18th November, 1939, and will move to Harewood on the 15th July, 1940. (ii) No. 1 Technical Training School was formed at Hobsonville to train Fitters 11 "E " and " A." Output: Forty-eight every eight weeks. (iii) Technical Training Centres based on the Railway Workshops have been formed at the Hutt, Otahuhu, Addington, and Hillside for the training of flight mechanics and flight riggers. Three centres have an output of twenty-four flight mechanics and flight riggers every six weeks, and the Hillside centre has an output of forty-eight flight mechanics and flight riggers every six weeks. (iv) No. 2 Technical Training School was formed at Wigram to train wireless operators, wireless electrical mechanics, instrument-makers and instrument-repairers, armourers, and. titters armourer. Output : Twenty wireless operators every eight weeks ; twenty wireless electrical mechanics every twelve weeks ; three instrumentmakers every twelve weeks ; three instrument-repairers every six weeks ; twentyfour armourers every twelve weeks ; twenty-four fitters armourer every twelve weeks. (v) An Administrative Training School was formed at Wigram on the 13th October, 1939, to train clerks store accounting, clerks pay accounting, clerks general duties, and equipment assistants. This school will close down in due course when the requirements in these trades have been fully met. Education. Until the outbreak of war the educational staff of the Air Force remained the same as at the end of the year 1938-39—one Education officer being attached to each of the Royal New Zealand Air Force Stations at Wigram and at Hobsonville. By the end of the year under review, however, the number of Education officers had increased to seventeen—seven at Headquarters, two at each of the Stations Wigram, Hobsonville, and Ohakea, and one at each of the Stations Levin, Dunedin, New Plymouth, and Blenheim. In addition, the full-time services of Mr. E. Caradus, Senior Inspector of Secondary Schools, who, until November, 1939, had been attached to the Air Force in an advisory capacity, were made available to the Air Force by the Education Department for the appointment of Director of Educational Services. The Education Officers at Stations continue, as in the past, to provide personnel with all necessary educational facilities, in particular with the necessary instruction in mathematics and in elementary science. The headquarters staff form part of the machinery made necessary by a very great extension of the educational operations of the Air Force. It became obvious very early in the war that insistence on University Entrance or School Certificate standards for the air crew would not only prevent this country from fulfilling its undertaking to Great Britain and the Empire, but also deprive the Air Force of the services of hundreds of men of the very best type. At the same time, a lowering of these standards would be dangerous. The decision was made, therefore, to select those men most suitable in other respects as pilots, observers, and gunners, provided that their educational qualifications were not of too low a standard, and then to bring them up to the necessary standard in mathematics and elementary science in the interval between their selection and their entry into the Ground Training School. A special syllabus, incorporating all the essentials, was drafted and put into operation early in 1940. Those men selected for the air crew and requiring educational training were grouped into classes in centres in which sufficient numbers were available. Men in other parts of the country were instructed by correspondence from headquarters. In both cases the special syllabus formed the basis of the instruction, and in both cases the men concerned continued with their normal occupations during the instructional period. The correspondence work was conducted by the headquarters educational staff, the classes, twenty in all, being taken in the evening in various post-primary schools throughout the country. In Auckland the Territorial Air Force Headquarters building was used for the purpose. The ready assistance rendered by post - primary teachers in this work and the occasional assistance rendered by country teachers to men on correspondence courses has been of the greatest value and, along with the work of the Education Officers, is enabling a steady stream of men fully qualified educationally to reach the Ground and Flying Training Schools. At the end of the year under review a total of 718 men —391 in classes and 327 on correspondence— was receiving instruction in this way. This number is apart from the large number of men receiving instruction at the various Stations through the medium of their Education Officers. This group will complete its preliminary educational training in May and June, 1940, and will be replaced by further groups so long as such a method of training may be necessary. In order to ensure the smooth operation of the scheme the Director of Educational Services has throughout been a member of the Air Crew Selection Committee. This Committee was, at the end of March, 1940, making its second tour of the Dominion since the outbreak of war, and already at that stage it was obvious that the number of men undergoing preliminary educational training would lie much increased during the second half of the year.

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