Three high schoolers from Liverpool Boys High School recently visited Centrum Printing to tour the facility and get ideas about a future career in print with other schools set to visit in the coming months.
Centrum Printing CEO Sandra Duarte regularly hosts high school students for site tours and also for work experience in a bid to show teenagers the possibilities that print manufacturing holds.
During the tour, the group learned about knife lines, prepress, prototyping, platemaking as well as what happens in the print room and the finishing area.
“We took them through the whole process of how we produce things here at Centrum,” Duarte told Sprinter.
“It is all about creating awareness for these Year 11 and Year 12 students who may not know what they want to do when they finish high school.”
Duarte said the Australian printing industry has a lot to offer but is often invisible in the careers discussion at high schools and she is hoping to change that with these site tours.
“There are some great job opportunities in manufacturing, especially in print manufacturing, because that is where we are coming from. There are technical roles, apprenticeships and roles that vary right through from administration through to technical and design and industrial design through to press operation with state of the art technology,” she said.
Duarte is a volunteer with Inspiring the Future Australia and as part of that involvement is having 12 students visiting Centrum Printing at the end of March from Chifley College, Bidwell Campus.
“Manufacturing has come a long way and it is important that school kids get to see and understand this,” Duarte said.
Apprentice and trainee support expanded
The push at Centrum Printing to bring print manufacturing into the minds of high schoolers as they ponder a career choice comes as the federal government announced it will expand its 50 per cent apprentice and trainee wage subsidy.
The Boosting Apprenticeship Commencements wage subsidy was launched last year as part of the federal government’s plan for national economic recovery.
The programme is fully subscribed and has helped to create 100,000 apprenticeships in less than five months.
But it is has now been expanded for a full 12 months for new apprentices and trainees signed up before September 30 2021 and will be demand driven.
Prime Minister Scott Morrison said it is expected that will generate around 70,000 new apprenticeships and cost $1.2 billion.
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