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Development of Apprentice Training Dominion Apprenticeship Orders have now been made in the following trades and occupations : Baking and pastrycooking. Bootmaking and repairing. Coach-building. Furniture-making, &c. Gardening and horticulture. Leather, saddlery, and canvas-goods making. Mechanical dentistry. Men's hairdressing. Motor engineering. Painting and decorating. Photo engraving and printing. Plumbing and gasfitting. Sheet-metal working. Ship, yacht, and boat building. Watch making and repairing and manufacturing jewellery. In all but three of these some reference is made to daylight training in technical schools, when the accommodation and equipment are available. Early in 1949 this work began in a number of centres in connection with motor engineering and plumbing. Little difficulty was experienced in those centres where the apprentices were sufficiently numerous to form a class, because, with the co-operation of the trades concerned, evening classes have been conducted for many years ; accommodation and equipment were therefore already available and not normally used by day-school pupils. For example, in the motor-trade there are now forty-six school centres at which evening classes for theory and practice are being held. Seven of these schools are approved for day training and many others will qualify as soon as suitable accommodation can be found for the practical classes. Equipment to the value of approximately £24,000 has been supplied by the Department and distributed to the forty-six centres according to their requirements. An additional list of equipment is now being prepared, and, subject to approval, it will be supplied to equip the centres completely for both day and evening training. During 1948 Motor Trade Examinations in line with the recommendations of the Consultative Committee on the Technological Examinations were held for the first and second qualifying examinations, as well as for the Certified Motor Mechanics Examination. The examinations were conducted by the Education Department on behalf of the Motor Trade Certification Board, with the following results :

Preliminary discussions have taken place concerning apprentice training in the baking trade. Fortunately, again, some experience has been gained in recent years through the development of adult training by the Wheat Research Institute in Christchurch. The Institute, though primarily designed for research under the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research, has been able to take a small number of trainees from time to time. It is proposed to use the resources in staff equipment and accommodation of the Wheat Research Institute for the training of all bakery apprentices in the Dominion, who will be brought to Christchurch by the Labour Department for approximately four weeks' training each year. The training will therefore be a joint effort of three instead of two Departments.

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Examination. Passes. j Fail. Total. Percentage of Passes. i | First Qualifying222 j 109 331 67 Second Qualifying "97 55 152 63-8 Certified Mechanics 1 175 1 85 260 1 67-3