Operation Apprentice

28 August 1992

TRAINING of building apprentices in Australia is about to change, if the Housing Industry Association (HIA) has anything to do with it.

The decline of job prospects in building has hit hard at thousands of apprentices laid off in recent years. The HIA says that in NSW alone there are more than 900 unemployed apprentices.

But the emergence of under-qualified and unemployed apprentices has led it to introduce a training scheme in Sydney's west, with the hope that it will become the industry norm.

The Housing Industry Skills Training Project, a housing development site on almost a hectare of land in Liverpool, was the brainchild of Mr Owen Shipp , who also co-ordinates the project.

Almost 40 apprentices are on the site, with Mr Shipp, who is a full-time TAFE teacher, and two part-time teachers, to build 26 houses.

Traditionally, apprentices have been trained on-the-job for four years with one day off a week to learn theory at a TAFE college.

Mr Shipp noticed when he was a teacher at Randwick Technical College, about four years ago, that more people were dropping out of the part-time carpentry course.

"At first I couldn't explain it but it became obvious after a while that their bosses were getting rid of them," he said.

For those who lost their jobs before they finished their apprenticeships, there were no other jobs available. Since the course was usually done only as part of an apprenticeship, most people dropped out of the course.

Some of the apprentices at the Liverpool site had been unemployed for almost two years before they joined the project.

"When you have a downturn in the industry, apprentices leave the industry and do other jobs, so when there's a boom we end up importing labour from overseas," Mr Shipp said.

Fifteen carpenters employed on the site were joined earlier in the year by 10 ceramic tilers and 13 bricklayers.

Theory is learnt in a portable classroom on site, then applied to their work on the houses.

TAFE had reservations about the scheme, Mr Shipp said, but added "It's really the way of training in the future, so TAFE were really willing to get behind us."

Roof tiling, plumbing and electrical work is done by licensed contractors hired by the housing development company A. V. Jennings, which is responsible for much of the project's funding. The land was donated for use by the apprentices by Liverpool Council.

The site manager and apprentice manager for the HIA, Mr Barry Leary , said A. V. Jennings planned to sell the medium-density houses later this year, then reimburse the council for the land.

"The whole industry has come in behind the scheme," Mr Leary said. "Manufacturers are coming forward all the time to see how they can contribute because it's an investment for the future for them as well."

Apprentices were "being taught the proper way to do it all, not the quick way", he said.

The success of the pilot project for the housing industry, the first of its kind in Australia, has led Newcastle, Penrith and Campbelltown councils to plan similar projects in their areas.

Company representatives from as far away as Canada, the US and Japan have also inspected the site with plans to copy the project.

The apprentices are paid full industry training wages from money provided by A. V. Jennings on a subcontract basis.

Mr Leary said the project meant the apprentices would be assured of jobs in the industry.

While the project is to finish next week, the carpentry apprentices hope to finish the practical training for the third year of their apprenticeships next year by building three two-storey houses in Chipping Norton.

Mr Leary said the industry was largely closed to new recruits at the moment, and "it will be early next year before it picks up again".

"This program is really needed by young people who have had jobs but have been pushed aside," he said. "They have been partly trained and the industry has put a lot of money in to them, so it is an investment in apprentices for the future when things pick up again."

The success of the scheme was reflected in the marks achieved by the apprentices, which averaged 90 per cent. That achievement was attributed largely to a competency-based assessment, used as part of the project to evaluate every aspect of the on-site training.

"They used to just have to work in the industry for four years and be given their certificate but the competency assessment means they become competent in every part of the job," Mr Leary said.

"You need to link industry and learning together rather than keeping work and teaching distinctive. It leads to more experience for them than their third-year counterparts.

"The standard is higher than most subcontract work, because the boys work to a standard and are assessed on their work, whereas most (contractors) work to a price."

The apprentices can apply for about 12 months' credit from the HIA's apprentice director, to reduce the required four-year apprenticeship to three years.

All of the bricklaying apprentices who worked on the site now have jobs in the industry.

Mr Shipp said, however, that the success of the project highlighted the need for a better training basis for apprentices.

"We had a lot of resentment at first by the education system hierarchy because it was something new and different, but once they realised how it worked, they were all for it," he said.

"We should have 70 apprentices on-site and building at least 100 houses a year - at least until the industry can stand on its own feet again and look after training apprentices for the future."

A WAY TO LEARN EVERYTHING ON THE JOB

As far as the apprentices who have worked on the Liverpool project are concerned, it is a perfect training scheme.

After all, there should be the on-site classroom, a boss who is also your teacher and practical experience in every area of the trade.

The opportunity to work again in the industry came just in time for Graham Tawse , one of 15 carpentry apprentices on the project.

Graham, 18, of Campbelltown, was retrenched 18 months ago, before he had finished his apprenticeship, because his boss could not afford to stay in business.

After being unemployed for almost a year, he said the project was his last chance of completing his apprenticeship.

He preferred the training in the scheme because he was being taught a lot more and asked to be much more responsible.

"It just seems the old, standard way of training means you spend too much time on small tasks instead of learning everything about the job," he said.

As well doing as the practical work, Graham joins the 14 other apprentices on-site each Monday to complete the TAFE certificate course in carpentry.

"You do not necessarily learn everything when you are working for a(contractor) because there's no one looking over your shoulder," Graham said. "There's a lot of people who have never done a lot of this work before, but here you learn the whole process."

Before Graham started the scheme, he and Paul Briggs, 18, of Macquarie Fields, had already begun a part-time TAFE course at Campbelltown Technical College.

Paul, who had an apprenticeship with his father's business until he joined the scheme this year, said: "Most apprentices don't do half of it with one business and finish it somewhere else.

"If that's what starts to happen in the future then people will just have to worry about finding more work before they even have any qualifications."


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