Letters, feedback, get it off your chest: 21 August 2008

Readers have their say over last week's news.

Re: School's out for Queensland print students and staff

We have enough tradesmen in the industry that have slipped through the gaps with the system that we have already. I would hate to see the skill level if the college is closed.
 
There is so much more to be learnt the right way in a school environment where the pressures of production deadlines aren't apparent. With the push towards Workplace Health and Safety within the printing industry due to many years of accidents, I would have thought that proper training would now be more a priority. Bad habits and old time short cuts generally flaunt the safety rules and with the same "qualified tradesman" now teaching the next generation of printers; it's rather scary.
 
The other worrying factor is the training on different machinery. An apprentice working at a small two-man operation running a single colour GTO or the like would never get the proper training and skills that come with being taught to operate a 5 colour. He would however have the same qualifications after serving his four-year apprenticeship.
 
We are in the midst of a skills shortage admittedly. We have enough "tradesmen" out there at the moment that are lacking in proper skills. Why is it then that we feel the need to fast track people that haven't really been trained correctly and safely and add to the decline in quality tradesmen?

Mitch Rohde

 

A very interesting and Catch 22 situation. Having been through the system some 35-odd years ago I could say the TAFE training  practical-wise wasn't as good as the on-job,(crap equipment and old has-beens) so go ahead and just do theory but some years later I came across an apprentice at a new job who was just about to come out of his time and he had very rarely been given any press time, only a broom.

I suggested to the general manager that there was no way they could sign his papers and let him out into the big wide world telling people he was a printer when he wasn't, (they were going to sack him). I suggested they offer him an assistant production position and continue his employ as he was never going to be a printer which they graciously did. He left about nine months later grateful but not as a printer.

In this day and age of pay for your training (mine was paid by the government) it's no wonder employers only want theory, it's probably better money spent. But Steve Kyd's comments are correct: there has to be a balance because unfortunately not everyone gets the on-the-job training they deserve and there are plenty of people out there who really shouldn't call themselves a printer when they really haven't been given the opportunity they really deserve. It is a funding problem and something that should become a government issue not an employer's one.

Wendy Sutton

 

 

Re: drupa articles

These days just with a new pacemaker in my 83 year of age, I must say that the excellent articles about drupa 2008 made me feel being there and it brought back many memories of all my personal visits from the first postwar drupa to drupa 1992 and the many groups of Australian clients I took there and to other places in Europa. Thank you Print 21.

Pieter Eveleens