Apprenticeship Act Cannot Make Work

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 681, 5 June 1929, Page 10

Apprenticeship Act Cannot Make Work

LEARNING A TRADE NEED FOR - A CENSUS “The Apprenticeship Act is not an Act to provide juvenile employment, as some people think it ought to be. Its main objective was to ensure that, as far as possible, young New Zealanders should be given opportunities to learn trades, and be assured a training which would make them competent to practise their calling.” This was the definition given by Mr. T. Bloodworth in the course of an address on the advantages and limitations of the Apprenticeship Act, at a meeting of the Auckland Educational Society last evening. Mr. Bloodworth pointed out that the Act provides for apprentices in private employ, and it assumed that either the employer himself, or journeymen employed by him, will properly train the apprentice. The limitations of the Act, he said, were set by the circumstances of industry, over which the Act, of course, had no control. Like the Arbitration Court for journeymen, it could fix the conditions of employment, but it could not ensure employment. The number of apprentices an employer may have is determined by the average number of journeymen he has employed during the preceding six months. It was easy to ascertain that, but very difficult to tell how many would be employed in the coming six months. It was very difficult to forecast the needs of industry, but the Apprentices Act makes no attempt at all, he said.

Mr. Bloodworth further considered that an attempt should he made to ascertain what proportion of boys born in 1920 could be absorbed in industry in 1934-35, and so on from year to year. It would be a difficult task, and only approximate figures could be obtained, but approximate figures would be better than none. What was needed, he said, was a census of industry, which would show the rate of growth, the numbers employed, and the numbers of trainees which would he required to fill vacancies by death and other causes, and to provide for the expansion of industry. He also stressed the need for State training for apprentices. It would px-ove more satisfactory to have them thoroughly taught than to‘leave the matter in the hands of private employers, or to allow employers to take unlimited quotas which they

would not be able to train properlyMr. H. J. D. Mahon, headmaster of the Auckland Grammar School, stated that while he was in America he was much struck by what was known as the “Antioch,” or part-time system of employment, where two apprentices worked at the one job, and at the same time attended a training school. They alternatively spent a fortnight at work and a fortnight at school, one taking the other's work while he was at school. Mr. Mahon also mentioned the system followed in Wellington, where the technical school was managed by a board of governors of 15, representing each of the trades to which the pupils i went when they left school. Each i member of the board had with him a I co-opted committee representing his I trade, and these 15 committees disJ cussed all phases of the industry, and I took measures to equip the boys in , the best manner for their calling.