| In February we introduced PEA Readers to sixteen-year old Juan “Johnny” Cocks who joined established NSW South-Coast dealership, Edwards Mowers as a first-year apprentice on January 2nd, 2007. OPE apprentices have been few-and-far between. At the end of last year there were only eighteen apprentices in the whole of Australia (about half in Queensland).
Johnny was fitted out in his new workshop uniform at the start of the year. He enrolled at Shell Harbour TAFE in January and completed his first weeklong block-release there at the beginning of March.
“It was quite interesting and covered a lot of stuff about diesel fuel,” he says.
Edwards Mowers Kevin Edwards explained that the first year of Johnny’s course covers the same topics as an automotive qualification. “Shell Harbour TAFE will be organising the change to a specialised OPE course next year,” he says. In the meantime, Johnny has settled in well and is performing elementary tasks around the dealership well.
“My favourite job is pre-delivering walk-behind mowers,” he says. His involves removing the mowers from their cartons and preparing them for sale. “You can see that you’ve done something, when it’s finished,” he says.
Another job he has been successfully completing is preparing chainsaws for pre-delivery by removing the saw chain from the guide bar and cleaning it in readiness for the mechanics to re-fit before sale.
“I’ve also been working on [carburettor] float bowls, recoils, blades and simple service jobs,” Johnny says.
Any problems with customers?
“No, they mostly seem friendly when I go to help them put their machines in or out of their cars,” Johnny feels.
Duncan Goozeff from the Australian Business Apprenticeships Centre, a New Apprenticeship Centre in North Sydney has visited Edwards Mowers twice already to liase between the Dealership and the Government bodies.
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“ He went through all the rebates and incentives that area available to us and helped us to make our claims,” Anne Edwards explains. “He also let us an interesting document with a code of good conduct for employers of apprentices.” The network of New Apprenticeship Centres (NACs) set up by the Federal Government provides a FREE service to employers to assist them with all the administration of New Apprenticeships.
“There seem to be many more incentives available today than even five years ago, when we last put an apprentice through trade school!” Kevin says noting that among other things, Johnny will be exempted from all NSW Workers Compensation contributions during his training.
Johnny is looking forward to his $800.00 tool grant. “It will be great to have my own set of tools before Easter!” He was also surprised that the New Apprenticeship program now means that both teenage school-leavers and adult trainees undertake the same three-year training program. “I was expecting to have to study for four-years. That means that I’ll be fully qualified before I turn 20!” And with that, of course, eligible for full OPE technician remuneration – not bad for a teenager.
Like many school-leavers, the one thing that Johnny is having a little trouble adapting to is the longer working days.
“School ends mid-afternoon, but we don’t finish here until 5:00pm,” he says admitting that he finds himself felling a bit tired during the last hour or so.
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