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The Industrial Training Research Unit is Britain's only research centrse of any size looking into problems of occupational training and is grant‐aided by the DE. ITRU has tended to concentrate its activities on training for manual work, on which it speaks with unique authority. Much of its work is concerned with the retraining of adults, so much so that at one time it was called The Industrial Retraining Unit. Its modus operandi is such as to appeal to practising trainers. Its work is based firmly on research but its aim is to solve practical problems of training encountered inside companies and it is this blend of practical experience with the investigational approach which makes its work so interesting. Any book by these two authors on the subject of training would command respect and attention, but one on the problems of retraining adults represents a milestone. This is the field in which they have specialised for a long time, in which they have an accumulation of hitherto unpublished information. The book describes many actual investigations and training exercises; the authors analyse the exercises, draw their conclusions and, to some extent, deduce certain basic principles. This anecdotal approach makes for easy reading; the deducing of conclusions makes for information which can be applied by the reader. The topics which the authors talk about are those which practising trainers will see as the real issues. All this results in a most exciting and usable book, unique in its field. With the permission of the authors and the publisher we now follow with edited extracts from the chapter which summarises the main conclusions arrived at in the earlier chapters. This is not the complete chapter — only about half of it. We have slightly changed the style of presentation. At this moment there are no agreed principles of adult retraining. We have underscored parts of the text to highlight statements which might reasonably be taken as fundamental principles in this aspect of training. This is our idea, not the idea of the authors whose claims are more modest.

In her second article on the Wool Board, Miss Allsop shows in detail how the Board has set about improving the quality of training in the industry.

AS soon as ever possible it is to be hoped that those responsible for looking after the interests of work study technicians will sit at a round table and agree upon what the relative rewards of the various grades of technicians should be.

Anything done by people gives rise to individual variation in its performance. For instance, rock climbing must reflect the important variations possible between all sets of arms, legs and rock faces, but we know from experience that the number of significantly different permutations and combinations of these is sufficiently small to leave us with a reasonable area of common techniques which will apply to most arms and most legs going up most rock faces. In other words the differences are overshadowed by the basic similarities. There are occasions, however, when individual aspects become so important that they modify our view about how general principles operate. This is especially true with an abstract activity such as learning — which can be something purely physical (with scarcely any conscious counterpart) or almost entirely mental. What people bring in the way of mental arms and legs to various learning situations varies so much and so subtly that we may lose confidence in the whole idea of a general technique. Perhaps there is then a special value in focusing our attention on individual differences, in the hopes that sufficient understanding of these will clarify the areas of similarity. To do this we need to find a common learning task that can be attempted by almost any individual so that we gain some perspective on whatever common principles there may be. This is exactly what we did when we sought to examine how managers learn. How would they compare with operatives? Do their activities in learning operate in totally different spheres? Would it even be POSSIBLE practically to compare them?

Discovery learning, says Michael Toye, is a method of ensuring that you get the information you require when you are ready for it. If this is so, it is not difficult to see why the method proves so successful with problem groups — that is with people who, for a variety of reasons, are not at the ready when the traditional instructor might think that they were. Older trainees, for example, take longer to understand instructions or to get geared to what a lecturer is saying. They also tend to switch off from a lecture when they hear a point of particular interest, while they relate it to their own personal experience. They switch on again later, perhaps having missed some vital information. Discovery learning copes with these problems by having the information available when the learners are sufficiently alert to benefit from it.

Groups of Education and Training Officers have formed — or are forming — in several parts of the country. Twenty ETOs met at Luton recently and returned to their various parts of Lancashire, the Midlands, Wales and the South to sound out colleagues in their areas.

THIS month there will be assembling at Margate the Conference on Automation organised by the Institution of Production Engineers.

‘Whatever else happens in British industry this year, one thing is certain — 1965 will go down as industrial training year.’

IT is difficult to prevent oneself from being submerged beneath the flood of writing that pours so endlessly upon us today, and almost impossible to evaluate much of it. The consequence is that material of real worth is often overlooked, to our serious loss. I am not thinking so much of the bound volume, for reviews and publishers' notices bring it to our attention.

Central Training Council Members Twenty‐eight members of the Central Training Council were named by the Minister of Labour on 6th May. In addition to Mr Lindley and Mr Longley, four other chairmen of industrial training boards will be appointed to the Council, but the Minister is keeping these seats in hand until boards have been appointed to cover a wider range of industry.