Printing – 20 years of Printing – Part 18
Printing – 20 years of Printing – Part 18 - 8th March 2009
Mr Clarke believes strongly that a press manufacturer of 2009 has an important role to play in the aspect of training and surprisingly believes that the extent of the contribution manufacturers make to education and training is at a level little changed in the past 20 years.
However, he thinks there has been a considerable shift in what is required and how it is supplied. ‘In 1989, most young people came into the industry via apprenticeships and were well trained at colleges in basic fundamental skills, our role then was to add to that by raising the awareness of what could be achieved once a full understanding of a press’s potential was gained,’ he said. In 2009, he says that many of the people coming forward in the training structure Heidelberg provides are not grounded in the skills apprenticeships and colleges once provided and so are asking questions of the most basic kind quite literally expecting to get an answer out of a box.
Perhaps this is not totally surprising given the success of automation in press design, for this must had had an affect on what was needed to be taught, but the dilemma press manufacturers are now facing is one that is symptomatic of society as whole. Our young people know how to work a calculator to add up, multiply and divide, but have lost the skills of being able to do such tasks without the calculator for many have little knowledge of basic arithmetic. It could be suggested as well that the present generation joining the printing industry (there are precious few at the moment) and from whom will come the replacements for Messer Bradley, Usher, Clarke and Doman, and others, have been let down by our teaching systems. Many have great graphic skills, are very competent on computer based tasks and so are keen to get into design and layout, but have poorly developed skills when it comes to articulating ideas and communicating them to a wider audience.
This is certainly not a fault of the printing industry, but it is a challenge that will have to be overcome for there is no business or organisation in existence that could survive without the printed word. Full marks to manufacturers for recognising this and installing specialist training centres.
A printer could do well to recognise this contribution when he tries to beat the price down by another 4.2546%.
To be continued…
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