APPRENTICE SYSTEM

Evening Star, Issue 22451, 23 September 1936, Page 8

APPRENTICE SYSTEM

IS IT ARCHAIC ? THE MINISTER DUBIOUS [Per United Press Association.] WELLINGTON, September 23. The ability of the technical colleges to meet modern industrial conditions and the value of the apprenticeship system were challenged by Mr Fraser (Minister of Education) in an address to the conference of the Technical Education Association. Mr Fraser said that, good as the colleges were, there was room for improvement, and tho Government was out to hdp as much as possible, as it ■realised the importance of the work. There was a proposal he had advocated that part of an apprentice’s time should be devoted to training at a technical college for a day or two each week. Perhaps something even more drastic would be required. Personally, he wondered if the apprenticeship system were not archaic, and’if it had not already outlived its usefulness. Nobody could claim as satisfactory a system that kept a boy running messages for six months, and made it possible for the worst type of employer to train a boy in a few months to do one or two things, and to keep him at that until his apprenticeship was almost over. Mr Fraser added that in such cases the boy was turned) out inefficient, and his opportunity of making good stultified.