FUTURE TRADESMEN.

Hokitika Guardian, 4 May 1923, Page 4

FUTURE TRADESMEN.

LOCALLY TRAINED OR

IMPORTED ?

WELLINGTON, April 23

While regretting the paucity of efficiently trained tradesmen in the Dominion, Mr J. Fletcher, of the Fletcher Construction Co., Wellington, is of opinion that the remedy does not lie in the importation of adult workmen, necessary though this may he rendered by persistence in the present industrial educational system, but in better methods of training young New Zealanders.

Mr Fletcher, who Ims just returned from a prolonged tour of the United Kingdom and America, thinks that the present system of technical instruction in Now Zealand could he immeasurably improved, lie is of opinion that a system of specialised preparation before entering his. apprenticeship would be invaluable to the hoy artisan. In Sydney, he found, there was a system by which lads about to commence an apprenticeship were placed in a position to learn the rudiments of the trade they were about to adopt, instances of. which he saw in the brick and tile trade through a fund assisted by the employers. There they acquired a great deal of useful knowledge and wore prepared to be of some use to their employers immediately their apprenticeship commenced. Here, a lad was frequently found to ho completely ignorant of the first principles of the trade concerned, and both ho

and his employer lost time valuable to both in the earlier stages of the apprenticeship. Fuller the Australian system of competent initial training, the hoy had to unlearn nothing, but was prepared from the commencement to give his employer useful service. Australia, said Mr Fletcher, was following the American principle of training schools, where hoys received a grounding before they were apprenticed to a trade. Here the hoy came to a (inn, and wasted a hit of time which would he obviated by a practical system of training schools. New Zealand’s existing system of technical education did not fulfil the Requirements. It was not such ns would lift local industries, in point of efficient", above the qualifications of the imported tradesman,