THE AIR FORCE

Wairarapa Times-Age, 16 June 1941, Page 4

THE AIR FORCE

AN IMPORTANT PHASE OF PREPARATION PRELIMINARY EDUCATIONAL SCHEME. ADDRESS BY MINISTER. (By Telegraph—Press Association.) WELLINGTON, This Day. “Many a time since the commencement of the war we have been amazed and thrilled by the heroic exploits of our airmen,” said the Minister of Education. Mr Mason, in an address last night on education for the Air Force. “With admiration and gratitude we have beheld the skill, courage and triumphant success with which they have met and defeated stronger hostile forces. These great and dramatic events do not happen without great preparation." An explanation of one phase in the preparation of New Zealand airmen —• the preliminary educational training scheme —was given by Mr Mason. This scheme, he said, was one of the ways in which the educational facilities of this country were being utilised to further the war effort. The New Zealand scheme was an essential part of Air - Force training here and was now being adopted as a model by other parts of the Empire. Discussing the origin of the scheme, Mr Mason said that in peace time it was not difficult to secure all the men needed without any special form of preliminary educational training. New Zealand’s maximum contribution to the Royal Air Forcq. before the war was no more than about 100 trained pilots a year, with a similar number untrained. With a war rec,uirement for New Zealand alone running into thousands of pilots annually, with a need for more men for the air crews as observers and air gunners, it became obvious that the pre-war scheme of selection did not meet war conditions. The decision was made, therefore, to select the man irrespective of his educational qualifications and to bring him up to the necessary standard before he went on to the ground training school, Levin. In this way no man of the right type would be missed. No man of the right type who had completed his primary school course was being rejected by the Air Crew Selection Committee. He was brought up to the standard in the air force classes or by correspondence while carrying on with his ordinary work. “Already some thousands of men have passed through this preliminary educational course and some thousands of others are in existing classes or are being handled by correspondence," said Mr Mason. “Its adoption by other parts of the Empire is a tribute to the scheme’s value and effectiveness, and reminds us that in this country there is still that strong spirit of initiative which from its earliest settlement has been always a marked feature of our people.”