A commercial road transport (CRT) programme is attracting good interest, including an increase in female students.
Manukau Institute of Technology (MIT) is providing the course for the first time which aims to get more people with class 4 licenses in response to driver shortages in the industry.
This adds to MIT courses aimed more at the administrative side of road transport such as logistics and freight.
Similar courses are already running at Toi Ohomai Polytechnic at Tauranga; North Tec, Whangarei; Eastern Institute of Technology at Gisborne; Whitireia Polytech, Porirua and Southern Institute of Technology, Invercargill.
National Road Carriers Association is encouraging its members to support the courses as the transport industry aims to attract more under 25-year olds.
The seven-month course is divided between classroom and practical work.
MIT head of practice and logistics Vaughan Lovelock says anybody with a car license can start the course.
It takes students through all the theory to gain a class 2 license as well as the practical experience.
This involves one day a week placement with an operational trucking company as well as using a driving simulator and gaining practical experience in forklift driving.
Nationally, the Sector Workforce Employment Programme (SWEP) set up early last year to encourage more drivers into the industry has seen a 10% rise in the issuing of class 5 licenses which allow drivers to use the largest truck and trailer units.
Steve Divers, road freight transport career pathways director for SWEP, says it’s important businesses back the training.
“The success of the CRT courses depends on the industry setting up cluster groups of trucking companies to support the programme and to provide the on the job practical experience which is all part of the course,” Divers says.
Apart from the women at MIT, the current course at Invercargill has an equal split between male and female students.
The other part of the equation to train more drivers is the reconfiguration of qualifications including gateway programmes run by the Motor Industry Training Organisation to meet the latest New Zealand Qualification Authority standards.
“This is the critical link between school and the industry clusters,” Divers says.
These are primarily aimed at school leavers and under 25-year olds to provide cadetships within the industry to gain experience while undertaking study.
“Adult students who are re-training to join the transport industry are certainly important … but the under 25s are the long-term future of the industry,” Divers says.
Careers expos have already been held in Rotorua and Timaru and others are planned for Feilding, Tauranga, Taupo, Auckland, and Nelson.
Divers says plans are on track to launch the new MITO strategy at an industry “Big Day Out” at Tauranga in August.
