Engaging with young people and encouraging them to consider a career in the automotive trades has been a long-standing mission of MTA Queensland and the MTA Institute.

Over the years, many courses have been run that have seen hundreds of school students introduced to the automotive industry, with many of those students going on to gain apprenticeships.

The MTA Institute’s current program for school students, called Auto Ready, has proven to be extremely popular.

The five-day course, which is delivered by MTA Institute’s experienced trainers, is held during the school holidays, enabling students to be immersed in a workshop environment and be exposed to many of the basic principles and practices of the mechanical trades.

Students undertaking the program learn tasks relating to using and maintaining tools and equipment and identifying and inspecting mechanical and electrical components and systems of light vehicles.

The Auto Ready program comprises three accredited units of competency, and successful completion of the course provides students with credit towards the full AUR20720 – Certificate II in Automotive Preparation qualification and 1 QCE point.

While the Auto Ready course was run initially from the MTA Institute’s state-of-the-art workshop in Brisbane, in 2022 the Institute began to take the course to regional Queensland – notably, partnering with Rockhampton’s Glenmore State High School to deliver the course there at the school’s trade training facility.

At the beginning of April, Auto Ready went further north, with the program run in Mackay.

Hosted by MTA Queensland member McCarthy Panel Works at its recently completed, Electric and Hybrid Vehicles Repair Centre, the program saw tremendous interest from local youngsters – so much so that a second course was scheduled to follow on immediately from the first, with more than 30 enthusiastic students enrolling onto the program.

The interest in the Mackay program was helped greatly through the support of McCarthy Panel Works owners, Andrea and Craig McCarthy.

Andrea – who is Chair of MTA Queensland’s National Auto Collision Alliance (NACA) division, a member of MTA Queensland’s Board, and also a member of I-CAR Australia’s Industry Advisory Board – is passionate about engaging with young people, inspiring them, and giving them the opportunities to learn about the automotive trades and see the pathways open to them to start their career journey.

With that in mind, she was the driving force behind the partnership with the MTA Institute that saw a new and exciting initiative run in conjunction with the Auto Ready program. That initiative was the Careers Expo – an evening event that saw local automotive businesses share information with students and their families about their work and trades, the technologies they use, and the opportunities and career options available.

Local dignitaries, including the Mayor of Mackay Greg Williamson and Councillors Alison Jones and Belinda Hassan from Mackay Regional Council, were joined by Julieanne Gilbert MP, Member for Mackay and Assistant Minister for Health and Regional Health Infrastructure in the Queensland Government, to give words of encouragement to the students and businesses in attendance.

Businesses taking advantage of the Expo included Snap-On, which brought along its PanTech truck filled with plenty of the technology the company has developed, including scan tools; Treadwell Tyre Service; the North Jacklin Motor Group dealership; Auto Corner dealership group; paint distributor Wholesale Paint Group; paint manufacturer BASF; Bob Jane T-Marts; ADAS Far North Queensland, who are specialists in the calibration of vehicle Advanced Driver Assistance Systems and their sensors; and Bryan Bodies Australia, manufacturers of high-quality truck bodies and trailers.

For Andrea, hosting Auto Ready and the Careers Expo was a chance to combine the education of students while helping them connect with industry – an objective beneficial to both and one, she said, that could, and should, be replicated in other regions.

“I thought it might be a great idea to bring people together, so that while we have kids here who are already interested in automotive . . . let’s put them in contact directly with employers who I know are looking for people,” said Andrea.

“This is what we would consider a national pilot in respect to the mini Careers Expo,” she added. “The training itself has happened in southeast Queensland before, and it is State government-funded, which is a fantastic program that they help the automotive industry with, so ideally we are looking at taking this and presenting the idea so that other regional centres can get involved.

“It gives the MTAQ a greater reach, gives the students in those regional centres somewhere where they can go in their holidays and actually take a look at the automotive industry, and gives the employers in that area something they can focus on.”

For the businesses that attended, the opportunity to reach out to young people who were already showing an interest in their industry was a welcome one.

“The fact McCarthy Panel Works has worked really hard alongside MTA Queensland to provide this event – for students especially, but any interested young people – is really good so we are really happy to be here and support both,” said Maree Sturdy, from Treadwell Tyre Service.

“The future of our industry . . . is built on kids coming through so that they can be trained up in roles in the tyre industry. And there are lots of roles – from tyre fitting on cars to trucks to ag to earthmoving, from wheel balancing to wheel alignment and underbody mechanical, as well as sales roles and workshop roles. We have lots of career paths for interested young people.”

Much the same reasoning was behind the North Jacklin Motor Group attending the expo. Represented by General Manager Jarrod Adams and bringing along a spectacular new Nissan Z to display, the North Jacklin dealership group encompasses Mitsubishi, Subaru, Suzuki, Honda, Mercedes-Benz, and Nissan brands and employs more than 100 staff. A fixture of the Mackay automotive community for more than 60 years, the Group is, as all automotive businesses are, always on the lookout for young people interested in a career in the industry and has roles available that run from window tinting to mechanical to sales to parts interpreting and more.

“This type of event brings kids straight to the doorstep of our business,” said Jarrod.

“It gives us an opportunity to liaise with them and they already have an interest in our line of work. That ticks off the first box with regards to our requirements – we get people who are interested in our field of work. That’s obviously a big step up. And then we can work with those kids to put them into the roles that will set them up for the future, and set us up for the future too.”

While the Careers Expo was a unique element of the Auto Ready week, the training program was the main focus for the students, and the group of 13 that attended the first week included some who were already certain about automotive as a career choice, and others who were curious and wanted to learn more about the industry.

“I chose to do this course because I thought it would be a good experience,” said Daniel Yarnold, a student at Mackay Christian College. “I am in Year 11 now and I want to get things under my belt so I can see what is happening an industry that I might want to work in.

“We’ve learned about safety, about mechanical components of a car – the brakes, electrical systems and so – we are pulling apart engines at the moment, and we are learning about crucial things we might need to know.

“I really enjoyed this week,” he added. “I got to see the workplace, work with professionals from the industry . . . and I am more interested in the industry now because I can see how it all works and get an appreciation of it.”

MTA Institute trainer Colin Crichton who, along with colleague Gareth Hartley, delivered the Auto Ready program, was full of praise for the students who attended, and reiterated the need for such programs in regional areas of Queensland, especially those areas in which the mining is a powerful local player.

“This is a fantastic way of catching these kids before they potentially end up going out to the mines,” he said. “They are interested to start with – they are giving up a week of their school holidays – and they have a genuine interest in some part of the industry.

“And the kids have been fantastic,” he added. “We’ve had plenty of laughs and plenty of good fun, and no misbehaving! Everybody has got along really well and the feedback from them has been really positive. They have certainly learned a lot, they tell us, which is the main thing and we’ve covered all sorts of things from engines through to steering, suspension and brakes and how everything works in a basic way. The quizzes we have given them, the practical tasks we have given them, they’ve been spot on with all of it, so we are really happy and the fact the kids have said they really enjoyed it is very encouraging.”

For MTA Queensland and the MTA Institute, the support from Andrea and McCarthy Panel Works was instrumental in being able to deliver such a successful Auto Ready program and Career Expo event, and while the plan has always been to deliver the course to regional centres, pairing the two in the future is something that is planned.

“The Auto Ready program has been a great success and we want to go into other regional towns – Townsville, Gladstone, Rockhampton, Cairns, anywhere in Queensland,” said Paul Kulpa, Director Industry Initiatives for MTA Queensland.

“We know that there is a place for this, and it is certainly something we want to keep exploring, making sure that we can keep that pipeline of students into the industry. And we want employers to come and support it as well.”

Source: Motor Trader e-Magazine (April 2023)

12 April 2023