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Wairarapa Times-Age, 30 September 1943, Page 4

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TECHNICAL TRAINING SCHEME RUSSIA’S LABOUR RESERVE. UNEMPLOYMENT BANISHED. In the Soviet Union nearly 500,000 youths in their middle teens are receiving a technical training to enable them to enter industry as qualified workers, writes the Moscow correspondent of “The Times.” This figure was given me by Mr Vasily Prokofiev, who is assistant chairman of the Labour Reserve Bureau. This is the Government institution responsible for the mobilisation, training, and distribution of Soviet youth in industry and transport. On October 3, 1940, President Kalinin signed a decree which established the system of replacing schools under the control of individual factories and different sommissariats —a system tending to limit their activities to the supply of local needs—by Government-con-trolled schools operating on a national plan. We have banished unemployment for ever in our land. ... We have no people knocking on factory doors looking for work. We must make an effort to create labour reserves for our industry. So ran the Supreme Soviet decree; and a fortnight later was established a central office in Moscow which laid the foundations of industrial technical schools throughout the Union. This was one of the most useful measures taken by a vigilant Government during months immediately preceding the outbreak of war. It has had the result of bringing skilled workers into war industries by tens of thousands monthly. Trainees enter the schools at the age of 14 or 15 on the completion of seven years’ regular schooling, and leave two years later equipped to enter industry as oeginners. Thus a considerable amount of skilled labour starts work at the age of 16 or 17. By arrangement with the military authorities they are not called up for four years after entering jobs. EQUIPPED FOR INDUSTRY. Two years after the establishment of these technical schools there are 70 in Moscow, besides 40 of the original factory schools still operating. A feature of the schools is that each specialises in a particular branch of industry. One school under the direction of Sergei Ogoltzov is housed in a building devoted to education before the Revolution. It stands in a cobbled side street. Here are 627 pupils, including 152 girls, who learn how to run an electric power station. In a room fitted up as a model station students can make the mistakes of the learner; they can blow fuses without inconveniencing Moscow. A commission which visited regular schools in the capital and talked with teachers and children found no reluctance among the boys and girls to abandon the humanities and concentrate on technical subjects. These reserve schools, too, offer the attraction of free uniforms—black brass-buttoned tunics and peaked caps for parade, and other types for work —as well as three free meals a day. Extra butter and bread reinforces the charms of a free education. which are further enhanced by the- guarantee of a good job at the end if a diploma is gained. Moreover, there is opportunity to earn money during the training period. There are boarding schools under the scheme, and dormitories are provided for orphans. Pupils study six hours daily on six days of the week, and 11 months yearly for two years. They are then under obligation to work four years in the industry where the Bureau of Labour Reserve places them. During their pupilage the youngpeople spend two days a week on theoretical study and the other four on practical learning. They spend time making tools they will need when they leave. These, kept in lockers, symbolise their growth toward maturity as fully fledged workers. Other products of a school I visited are sold to the electrical industry, the selling prices being distributed in a specified ratio between pupils, teachers, the school director, and the organisation. PUPILS’ EARNINGS.

The average monthly receipts are some 140 roubles, and the pupil’s share about averages the sum Russians today spend on rationed food. But in some schools, where the work is on types that command higher prices,’ the pupils are said to earn as much as 800 roubles monthly. The director told me that children came from all sections of the population, sons and daughters of professional men mingling with those of house-porters, though the majority are children of factory workers. While at one school all jobs that need to be done in an electric power station are taught, in another boys and girls learn all the processes of a tailoring workshop. There are 30 different types of technical school under the control of the central office. These labour reserve schools remain essentially schools, in spite of production that goes on in them. Besides the specialised education the regular curriculum of State schools is followed: in physics and mathematics, for example. Children who join technical schools before finishing the compulsory seven-year courses elsewhere are coached up to the requisite standard while studying thbir specialities. For the Government is determined not to let industrial needs 'cut into standard education. A school has its library, gymnasium, recreation room, wall newspaper, and komsomol sports organisation, like any other school. Classes are taken to concerts and theatres, and in summer do farm work together. At the end of each year examinations are held and judged by representatives of the industries which the youths are destined to join. According to the verdict pupils are given workers’ grades from first to fifth. Among the teachers are engineers, university professors, and experienced workers. SKILLED WORKERS.

Military training is limited to elementary self-defence and drilling. It brings, however, a formal discipline and probably greater pride in uniform, but the youths are left in no doubt that they are needed to fight on the home front as skilled workers. Being part of .Soviet industrial schemes, the schools provide at early age such qualified labour as is deemed necessary to forward planning in various branches of industry. On the educational side they in effect prolong the schooling period by six years after the compulsory seven years. They provide a Soviet youth with the chance of earning a good wage at 16 or 17 and of having at 21 six or seven years of practical work behind him. On the other hand, during the formative years between 14 and 21 they afford little opportunity of changing one’s mind and taking up new interests.