BRING BACK THE 5-YEAR APPRENTICESHIP TRAINING SYSTEM
THE EDITOR: Since the abolition of the five-year apprenticeship training system in the various industries, our country has been deprived of highly skilled and properly trained craftsmen and technicians. In the years of the five-year apprenticeship training system, young men whose desire were to acquire skills and become technically trained have had the opportunity to access the five-year apprenticeship training system at an early age of 15 years. The government has allowed this apprenticeship training system to be replaced by the oppressive and corrupt contract system, which benefits only the employer and the contractor. The standard of work produced by the contract system is generally unacceptable. The contract system has taken over to the detriment of the youth population and by extension the nation. The contract system has also failed in providing highly skilled and properly trained craftsmen. The Government would certainly be doing justice to a large section of the population of young men in our nation, should the five-year apprentice training system be urgently re-introduced. The programme should be expanded to include auto-electricians, air-condition and refrigeration, carpenters, mason, plumbers etc. The Government’s effort to substitute the five apprenticeship training system with other existing training programmes such as NESC, YTEPP and even COSTAT in providing highly skilled craftsmen and technicians has failed miserably. The present training programmes are producing youths with diplomas and no skill. Some with neither diploma nor skill. Today there is a significant increase in the number of new industries. Therefore, a larger number of young men and women can be recruited as five-year apprentices. The Government can subsidise or offer tax concessions to all existing industries so as to encourage the five-year apprenticeship training system. Encouraging a higher intake of University students each year is highly commendable. But universities produce engineers and not craftsmen technicians. Our Government has now found itself in a position of having bring in skilled craftsmen and technicians from the Caribbean not because of CSME and FTAA but simply because the country has moved away from five-year apprenticeship training system. COSTAT, YTEPP and NESC would never be able to provide a skilled bank of nationals, if we are to move into a developed country status. At the end of the five-year apprenticeship training system, the apprentices become skilled and trained to the extent that they were employed as a bona-fide craftsmen, who can function without supervision and opposed to students trained in the present training systems. Students coming out from COSTAT, YTEPP and NESC still have to undergo a period of training before being able to function as craftsmen and technicians. There is really not substitute for the five-year apprenticeship training system. REX MAHADEO Marabella
This five-year apprenticeship training system provided training employment for young men during the day and technical studies in the related discipline from 5 pm to 8 pm. Leading to the National Craftsman’s Diploma, thence to the National Technician’s Diploma. The various fields of training and study were generally Electrical, Instrumentation, Mechanical, Machine Shop and Welding. Upon successful completion of the apprenticeship period, most of these young men were offered permanent employment in the company that had invested in their training. This was a form of succession planning for the survival of these industries themselves. Even though there were few industries that offer this five-year apprenticeship training at the time, the nation’s need for highly skilled labour was always met.
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"BRING BACK THE 5-YEAR APPRENTICESHIP TRAINING SYSTEM"