Training Plans for Retail Motor-trade Apprentices
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QUESTIONS concerning the.training of personnel for the servicing and selling of commercial vehicles were raised during a discussion evening which the Leeds Centre of the Institute of the Motor Trade held last week_ The subject was the I.M.T. 's recently announced education policy, which, linking up with the Government's plans for further education of young people, embodies a scheme whereby retail motor trade apprentices also receive progressive training at technical colleges. There is a five-years' period of youth training, after which the employee can take a three-years' course to prepare for senior examinations of the Institute.
Mr. C. R. Crane (Leeds) enquired if the I.M.T. syllabus for classes at technical schools made any distinction between the servicing and selling of heavy vehicles and cars. It appeared to be generally agreed in the trade, he said, that there was a distinct difference between the two. He suggested that if that difference existed between the two branches, it should be provided for in the training syllabuses, and Mr. Gledhill replied that he thought they could be applied to the commercialvehicle side of the trade without a single alteration.
Mr. Crane also asked if there would be compulsion on employers to employ youths who were trainees under the scheme.
Mr. A. C. Richards (Leeds), chairman of the .I.M.T.'s Yorkshire Region, pointed out that the Government's education Bill provided for young people's compulsory attendance on one day a week at day continuation schools. Therefore, if this provision became law the automobile engineer would either have to employ apprentices on that basis, or he would have to arloPt. the uneconomic policy of using fully trained mechanics to do semi-skilled
jobs. • Capacity of Industries to Absorb Youth
Mr. Richards also said he anticipated that, within the next few years, industries would be so organized that there would be concrete information as to their capacities for absorbing youth, and he visualized legislation to ensure that—especially in times of slump—the absorption of youth by any particular section of industry was up to its capacity.
Mr. T. I. Bennett (Bramley) a member of the Council of the Motor Agents' Association remarked that one reason why he welcomed the scheme was because its effective application would make the retail motor trade pull up, its socks " in the matter of standards of premises, equipment, and so forth. It was impossible for ill-equipped, badly organized shops to provide the quality of youth training required by
the scheme. There should be registration of firms, or some other measure, to ensure that a firm which took youths for training was fully qualified to provide the requisite standard.
As to the trade's capacity to absorb young laboltr, Mr. Bennett said it was to be expected that information on that point would be provided by the statistical bureau which had been set up by the M.A.A. Council.
Mr. A. C. Richards said it was corn; gated that in the retail motor trade the number of young people affected by the proposals in the Government's Education Bill would be in the neighbourhood of 10,000.
Alluding to references which Mr. Wood had made to the activities of the Institnti.on of Automobile Engineers in catering for the education of youth, Mr. Howarth—who is connected both with the and the I.A.E.--said that that body catered for youth on the manufacturing side of the industry rather than for apprentices on the retail side.
The chairman emphasized the collaboration between the I.M.T. and the I.A.E. in the matter of youth training.