$41m to double apprenticeships

By MATHEW DEARNALEY

Tradespeople eager to pass on their skills to a younger generation have spurred the Government into doubling its target number of "modern" apprentices to 6000.

The Government is adding $41 million to the apprenticeship scheme it started two years ago, increasing its promised four-year investment to $92.5 million.

Although most of $703 million committed to "the knowledge economy" over that term is being pumped into tertiary education and training institutions, the Government says trades apprenticeships have re-emerged as an important option for practically minded youngsters.

With the Government just a month off reaching its initial target of 3000 apprentices, Associate Education Minister Steve Maharey says he wants to double the number by December next year.

Skill New Zealand head Max Kerr acknowledged this would still be far less than the more than 20,000 people in traditional apprenticeships in their heyday of the early 1980s, but he said "it's a different world now" as people stayed longer at school.

The abolition of formal apprenticeships a decade ago in favour of less rigid forms of industry training has been blamed for an increase in shoddy workmanship, which the Government has been trying to fix with its new employer-assisted scheme.

Training co-ordinators receive $2000 of Government money for supervising each apprentice, placing them with willing employers and even moving them between firms according to business circumstances and training needs.

Mr Kerr said the scheme had struck "a tremendous chord" both among parents wanting a secure future for their children and employers feeling a sense of altruistic obligation to pass on their skills before they retire.

As well as catering for such traditional trades as plumbing and carpentry, the scheme was being expanded to include industries such as forestry, retailing, tourism and office administration.

"It's an old concept which we have taken off the shelf, dusted down and given a new set of clothes," said Mr Kerr.

The Government is also increasing its fund for workplace training organisations by $14 million over four years, pushing annual spending to $90 million from $60 million in 1999.

And it has announced a $131 million package of incentives to help beneficiaries to move off welfare and into what it hopes will be sustainable jobs.

This includes:

* $55.3 million for a more active case-management system to move domestic purposes and widows beneficiaries into work "when parenting responsibilities and individual circumstances allow".

* $36.6 million to increase the number and quality of before and after-school childcare centres.

* $22 million to help long-term beneficiaries with children to meet initial costs of going to work, including a three-month benefit debt holiday.

* $4.9 million to ease the rate at which benefits abate for people taking full-time but low-paying jobs.

The Government insists the case-management system will be less rigid than the work-test regime it inherited in which beneficiaries can have their payments docked for not accepting part-time work or training as soon as their youngest children reach six.

Work and Income New Zealand will recruit more staff to develop individual plans with beneficiaries, but a spokesman for Mr Maharey said it would allow greater support for preparing people for work when they were ready.

Mangere People's Centre after-school co-ordinator Lynne Raumati welcomed any increases in childcare support for struggling parents, but said she would be concerned if an enhanced case-management scheme turned into an invasion of family life.

"Let's hope it means somebody takes people seriously rather than just treats them as a number."

She said sole parents often faced difficulties making appointments with Winz staff as pressure mounted on them to find work.

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