Call for apprentice incentives
Employers need more support to take on new apprentices, who often come to the job needing to be trained in how to work on top of how to perform a trade, the owner of one electrical firm says.
The Government has revealed its plans for a major shake-up of vocational training in New Zealand.
It wants to create a single, centralised New Zealand Institute of Skills and Technology to take the place of the 16 polytechnics around the country. That organisation would also have responsibility for apprentices ‘‘to better align on- and off-the-job education’’.
Glenn Fulton, who owns Go Fox Electrical in Wha¯nga¯rei, said change would be good if it meant a uniform curriculum delivered around the country.
He had encountered one levelfive course in which the tutor was writing the content days before delivering it.
But he said there also needed to be incentives offered to employers for taking on new apprentices.
Sometimes apprentices did not turn up, or were late, he said. ‘‘For the first year they are just cargo. They don’t know how to work.’’
Fulton said he paid apprentices a living wage, although employers are only required to pay $13.20 an hour to those who are training.
‘‘If you want them to have to live off 2 Minute Noodles you can pay them $13.20.’’
He said he had been fortunate that his apprentices had been ‘‘fantastic’’ but employers would always go into the arrangement knowing they would have to ‘‘tow them around’’ for a few months, at least.
Chrissy Roff, a human resources manager at Laser Electrical Rosebank, agreed there were issues with the current system.
Training providers struggled to recruit people to train apprentices, she said. ‘‘They’re not trained teachers, just electricians. That’s a real issue.’’
She said there was no shortage of people wanting to become electrical apprentices – the company has about 30 in training at the moment.
But she said she was concerned at the prospect of control of training being taken away from the industries and given to a centralised organisation.
‘‘I don’t know how they can support it if they don’t know about the industry.’’