Wairarapa Times-Age WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 24, 1938. APPRENTICE TRAINING.

Wairarapa Times-Age, 24 August 1938, Page 4

Wairarapa Times-Age WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 24, 1938. APPRENTICE TRAINING.

QUESTION of great practical importance and one that calls for more attention than it is getting was touched upon by the Minister of Labour (the Hon 11. T. Armstrong) when he observed, in the House of Representatives on Friday last, that the apprenticeship laws of this country are absolutely antiquated. The Minister was on firm ground, too, when he said that there were too many restrictions and that in the general run of trades under modern conditions he did not think a five years’ apprenticeship was necessary. In conditions that are now largely obsolete, an apprentice, under the best conditions then ruling, developed slowly the powers of hand and eye that made him a skilled craftsman who might be, and usually was, regarded as a specialist, but nevertheless was expected to .be skilled in a farwider range of detail work than any craftsman, save in extraordinary conditions, is expected to deal with in these days. Much detail work that used to be entrusted to tradesmen is now done by machinery, or has been made obsolete by machine products. Machines, too, are being used more and more by tradesmen in the work they still carry out. The masterj 7 of some trades continues to call forextended training,' but the wonderfully varied processes of modern industry are in great part divided into specialised sections. Very often the qualifications needed for effective work in one of these sections can be acquired by an average individual in a comparatively brief period of intensive training. Provided due use is made of technical instruction and other, aids to progress, it should be quite possible, in modern conditions, while shortening the average period of training very considerably, to enable apprentices to qualify in more than one specialised branch of industry. The advantage of providing in this way for mobility of; labour, and for such variations in production as may become desirable, is brought within reach by the specialised development of industry and should .on no ...account be allowed to drop out of. sight. As economic organisation improves, the possibility of varying the incidence of industrial production, and doing it without strain, or. • friction, no doubt will become an important factor in averting unemployment. ... Meantime there is no doubt that the apprenticeship conditions ruling in this country, as the Minister of Labour has said, are out of date and in need of revision. A shortening of the apprenticeship period and the institution of intensive and systematised methods of training would enable largely increased numbers of young New Zealanders to qualify for skilled occupations. Important benefits would thus be conferred upon individuals and the community. One note of warning that perhaps needs to be sounded relates to the transition from school to industrial training. , A shortening of the period of trade apprenticeship may' reasonably be taken to connote a raising of the average school leaving age. There is a type of schooling, however, which tends to make boys disinclined to undertake manual work, even when they are not obviously fitted for some more distinguished branch of activity. ■ [Wherever precisely the blame may lie, schooling of this type, and its results, call at least as urgently for revision as do our apprenticeship laws. AGRICULTURAL INSTRUCTION. EFFORTS that are being made by the Board of Governors of Wairarapa College, in association with the Trustees of the Training Farm at Penrose, to popularise and extend the agricultural courses at present being carried on have obvious claims upon the practical and helpful sympathy of the people of this district in town and country. It is decidedly an anomalous state of affairs that in a district as largely dependent as is the Wairarapa on agricultural industry, the development of agricultural education has not made greater strides. It is not the fault either of the Training Farm Trustees or of the national and district educational authorities that more has not been done in this way in the past to contribute to the welfare of individuals and the prosperity of the district. A number of attempts have been made from time to time to extend the scope of agricultural education, but the offer of liberal facilities to that end has inspired for years past a uniformly poor response. It is clear, however, that with only thirty out of 500 pupils attending Wairarapa College taking the agricultural course —even allowing for the fact that the 500 includes boys and girls—the essential needs of the district and its people are not being met. This is a state of affairs which should suggest its own remedy to members of the rising generation and their parents. A life on the land still compares well with any available alternative and there certainly would-be a poor outlook for a district like the Wairarapa were it otherwise. There is no doubt that with a sufficient number of pupils offering year by year, the facilities for agricultural training now provided at • Wairarapa College and the Training Farm can be extended very considerably.