Wintec News

Students chop into trades skills

Posted On: Tuesday, 06 September 2011

Learning to make a motorbike might not sound like girly fun but one 15-year-old was revving over it.

Hamilton Girls' High School year 11 pupil Xenia Ali was one of 48 trades academy students from 12 Waikato schools at Wintec to celebrate the completion of a six-week course introducing mechanical, electrical and automotive engineering. With three other girls on the first-year course, Xenia was not a lone female, but being surrounded by dozens of boisterous males was not something she was used to at an all-girls school.

She said the boys were not shy about grabbing tools before she got a chance to use them but it was not enough to put her off something she had always wanted to do.

At Wintec's Rotokauri campus, the students paraded the fruits of their labour – chopper-style motorbikes made from scooter parts. Xenia said her parents were proud of her efforts but her dad may have had an ulterior motive. "My dad wants the bike so it'll be a good father's day present I guess," she laughed. The students have the option of a similar six-week stint in their next two years of school.

Their graduation from the first phase of the course came during the same week as Education Minister Anne Tolley announced the number of trades academies nationally would double next year. Women's Affairs Ministry chief executive Rowena Phair also commented this week on the lack of women in trades, citing 2006 census figures of only 1 per cent of tradespeople in New Zealand being female.

Te Kauwhata College principal Colin Driller was a strong believer in the benefits of the initiative.

"One of the parents said to me: it's given my boy a real focus for the future and it's opened his mind to his future career," he said.

Motivation and commitment were the keys to education, and he saw that in spades from his students who were part of this course.

Article courtesy of the Waikato Times