'Green skills' now taught
Sydney Morning Herald
Tuesday August 4, 2009
APPRENTICE plumbers and carpenters are already being trained in the "green skills" that formed the centrepiece of Kevin Rudd's address to the Labor Party conference last week.The bulk of the Prime Minister's announcement that the Government would create "50,000 new green jobs, traineeships and apprenticeships" was that 30,000 trainees and apprentices would learn green skills as part of their training from next year.Mr Rudd said electricians, for example, would be trained in installing solar energy. Plumbers would be taught to install water recycling systems. But while the industry welcomed the initiative, there is also a view that apprenticeships already offer this type of training."Plumbers are already being trained up on green skills," the chief executive officer of the Construction and Property Services Industry Skills Council, Alan Ross, said.Mr Ross said he did not think his organisation, which sets training standards for construction workers and plumbers, would need to add anything to its curriculums in response to Mr Rudd's announcement."I haven't received any advice from the department as yet as to what else they want us to do. But we've already integrated sustainability right through all of our training packages."For electricians, another issue is whether apprenticeships offer enough time to teach "green skills" as well as the basics of the trade. To get the accreditation needed to install solar panels, for example, an electrician would need about 60 to 80 hours training €“ too much to fit into an apprenticeship, the chief executive of the National Electrical and Communications Association, James Tinslay, said."Somebody leaving school and going into a traineeship or an apprenticeship in the electrical sector, you just can't do it that quickly because of the requirements for community safety."
© 2009 Sydney Morning Herald