MTONZ Update – March 2023

The first two months of the year have been eventful, we’ve made some great progress getting things moving forward not without some hurdles thrown in due to the terrible weather. We hope everyone has managed to keep safe, our thoughts are with those affected by the devastating flooding.

Making Inroads With Gateway/Work Experience

We’ve been having great success working with 3 schools within the Auckland area to develop Gateway Programs for our industry – helping to guide students from schools into CNC Machine Shops.

These programs will allow students the ability to go out for Work Experience and receive NCEA credits. We currently have one student looking to start his Gateway Program at WGD on the shore. With a further 9 planning on doing Work Experience in a CNC Machine shop.

Once this process is proven out, we will be working to implement it starting in our Member’s cities and then branching out to other regions, making it a lot easier for:

1
Schools to send students out for work experience at CNC Machine Shops, knowing they will be receiving NCEA credits.
2
Companies to house students with set criteria that will help them while the student is in their machine shop.

Next Steps: We have a meeting on the 29th of March with a consortium of Gateway Coordinators from around the region to discuss putting students through the program.

Qualifications

The Work Development Council have let us know that they have created the Technical Advisory Group that will begin the process of confirming the new apprenticeship framework.

We are also looking at working with a PTE to register micro-credential courses, which would allow companies to put staff through short courses and give them NZQA-approved micro-credentials.

Big Welcome To Our New Members

We’d like to welcome Machine Makers, Precision Components, Mastip and Farra as new MTONZ Members, it’s great to have you on board supporting the industry!

Advisory Board

In the next couple of weeks, we will be in contact with the candidates for the MTONZ Advisory Board.

Apprentices

PCL signed up one of the students we took out on a tour last year after he decided he wanted to pursue a career in CNC Machining.

We have a further 2 students currently looking at applying. Are you on the lookout for apprentices at your shop? If so, let us know below!

We’d Like To Hear From You!

As a valued member, part of our commitment to you is to increase the amount of talent coming into our industry and into your machine shop. To help us better gauge your apprenticeship needs, please reply to this email with your answers to the below:

1
Would you be willing to take students on work experience?
2
How many apprentices are you looking for? Any indication will help us (and you!) so we can advertise upcoming opportunities. For example, do you think you will need at least 1 apprentice every 2 years, or 2 every year?

Let us know or we can come and have a chat.

Thanks,

Andy and the team at MTONZ

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