POST-WAR EMPLOYMENT OF SKILLED WORKERS 185
why we have thought it desirable to proceed by two stages. Relevant to the second stage is the question : What changes can be made in our Technical Training Scheme to make it serve fully and completely the present-day needs of civil industry. It involves the consideration of the long-term policy, of providing trained technical personnel for the postwar industrial development of the country.
Employment of Skilled Workers
On the other hand the problem we have to consider as relevant to the first stage is to find ways and means for the rehabilitation of the thousands of our skilled workers, turned out by our training centres, now serving in the Army but who will be soon thrown out of employment at the close of the war. Our expectation is that Industry should not find it difficult to take over these men, especially, as we hope that there will be a post-war expansion of civil industry and a consequent increase in the demand for men technically trained.
The immediate problem before us is : How to fit them to our peacetime industrial structure, we want to examine the difficulties connected with it and to plan to meet them well in advance. To accomplish success in this we have to see what further training and what additions and modifications in our training syllabuses, or introduction of subsidiary courses are necessary in order to make our trainees more acceptable to existing industries. The results of your deliberations will determine what future progress we can make in the next stage. The two stages are closely connected and the second is no less important than the first.
I do not wish to take more of your time as I know you have a heavy agenda. But before I close I should like to say how important it is that we should have an adequate supply of skilled personnel if we are to plan a brighter future for our country. It is only by tripartite cooperation between Government, employers and workers that we can hope to develop a technical training scheme on sound lines. I would here make a special appeal to employers and industrialists. Their specialised knowledge and experience is invaluable but no less is their future co-operation in maintaining any technical training scheme that may be set up by Government.