Apprenticeship System

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 12, Issue 10, 6 January 1948, Page 5

Apprenticeship System

Not To Be Discarded Says Rehab. Director It was not the intention, nor had it ever been suggested, that the apprenticeship system should be discarded and that everyone learning a trade should go through a trade traning school. This was explained by the Director of Rehabilitation, Mr F. Baker, replying to discussion on the future of the rehabilitation trade training scheme at the quarterly meeting of the Rehabilitation Council in Wellington. “I think all who have discussed this matter feel that the trade training centres (for the building trades! should be continued as long as they are necessary to supplement the apprenticeship system rather than replace it,” said Mr Baker. He considered there was still room for the centres, particularly remembering that the number of young people available to industry was going to be small over the next few years due to the low birth rates in the depression period. The subject was raised by Mr W. A. Fox (Wellington). There was evident, he said, a decreasing tendency in the number of apprentices commencing trades and this must affect. the future of New Zealand, which was paying dearly for the 9000 or so apprentices who “went

out” during the depression. The rehabilitation trade training scheme had had in the past the wholehearted support of the trade union movement; they did not wish to lose that support. In some, trades the quotas of apprentices were actually filled, said Mr S. W. Gaspar,' Rehabilitation Board member in charge of trade training activities. Again, other trades, such as moulding and bricklaying, had not proved popular in % recent years and were not getting the apprentices. The former trade, moulding, was the basis of engineering, while the latter was vital to the building industry and its annual inflow was only seven apprentices a year. Carpentry was the basis of the building industry, and here again during the past ten years apprentices taken on had not been equal to ‘25 per cent, of those required. “I would like to see a conference go into the whole question, but not with the psychology of keeping men out of any particular trade,” said Mr Gaspar. “We would be pleased to place our information before such a conference. The concern at the moment is that we have too many labourers; we must remember that the more labourers we have then the lower is our standard of living.

“I myself believe that the old apprenticeship system has proved itself obsolete. There used to be apprenticeships for doctors and lawyers, but they discovered that they had to have better methods of training in those professions. Unfortunately trades have not progressed in the same way. There should be no difficulty in supplying from the ranks of our own working men all the skilled tradesmen this country needs.” Mr Gaspar added that the Ministries of Rehabilitation and Labour were conferring with regard to the future of rehabilitation trade training schools and the rehabilitation training schemes generally.