The one‐year integrated course in engineering

When the one year ‘off‐the‐job’ integrated course for first‐year engineering apprentices was established, it was hoped that every effort would be made to see that wherever it was held, and however it was organized, arrangements would be made to ensure that the industrial training and further education elements would progress hand in hand throughout the period of the course. In other words ‘training’ and ‘education’ taken together, and suitably inter‐linked, were to form an essential part of a boy's — or girl's — continuing education on leaving school, carried out in accordance with sound educational principles. At the same time, the whole would be an appropriate introduction to the world of work. He would not be asked to practise a basic skill, or to use a machine tool, unless he was also concurrent with it, learning about and beginning to understand the theoretical aspects of these matters. This is, we now realize, an ideal state to which all concerned with the courses should strive but it is unfortunately, one which, for various reasons, is extremely difficult to reach. The main reasons why full integration cannot be achieved at present can be summarized as follows.