Page 325 - Bahrain Gov Annual Reports (III)_Neat

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Mr. Hutchings, the Principal of the school, took over for a time the duties of the State Engineer
during the latter part of 1363 (1944) and remained in charge of Government petroleum inspection.
One of the Syrian staff, Saeed Tabbara, who had held the post of senior master in the school for some
years, was appointed headmaster. In this year there was a drop in the number of students due to
the increased employment of local workers on military and other development schemes in Bahrain.
Boys with even the minimum of practical training were in demand and many of the students were
tempted by the prospect of high wages to leave the school after a brief attendance. Boys with only
primary school education, who would normally have been admitted to the Technical School, obtained
outside employment after passing through the middle forms of the primary schools. Although
the pressing demand for labour of all kind was a temporary condition most parents preferred to see
their sons become early wage earners than to allow them to remain longer at school with the prospect
of securing employment with good wages in the future. Boys who finished their training at the school
and who wished to set up as carpenters in the bazaar were unable to do so as they could not procure
for themselves even the most necessary tools for their craft.

Three ex-Technical School students were sent to Cairo at Government expense for training in
the Egyptian Technical Secondary School with a view to eventually becoming teachers in the Bahrain
school and two of the scholarships given by the Bahrain Petroleum Company for education in Bahrain
were allocated to the Technical School. There was a steady improvement in the teaching of class
subjects which included practical Mathematics, Drawing, English and elementary Trade Technology
with the addition of Arabic and some general knowledge in the preparatory classes. The woodwork
section undertook a large contract for making furniture for the residential quarters of the British
Overseas Airways Corporation and a number of fitting turning and blacksmith jobs for the Royal
Navy were done on the mechanical and metal-work side.

During the following year much the same programme was carried out with the addition of
elementary lessons in the theory of electricity but conditions in the labour market throughout the
year continued to attract boys away from the school and the number of students again decreased.
In 1365 (1946) there was a very definite revival of interest in technical education. This was due
partly to the opening of two new sections in the school for motor repairing and electric welding and
also because there was a falling off in the demand for serai-educated youth by military and other
organisations, quite a number of young men who had cut short their education to take temporary
jobs found themselves without work. The number of students at the school rose from 27 to 40.

Certain changes were made in the staff; the English teacher, an Egyptian, was transferred
to the Secondary School and replaced by a local teacher who had done a course at a teachers framing
school in Cairo, one of the Egyptian instructors in the fitting shop resigned and was replaced by an
old student from the school who had completed a two-year technical course in Egypt and a local
mechanic was appointed to give help in practical motor repair work. Mr. Campbell Tunnicliffe,
the Officer-in-Charge of the Public Works Department, superintended, when possible, the engineering
side of the school especially the considerable amount of work which was done in the school for the
P.W.D.

Instruction in electric welding and motor mechanics was made possible by the Bahrain Petro­
leum Company which provided an old motor vehicle on which the boys worked and an outfit for electric
welding. Some of the P.W.D. vehicles, a roller, a stone crusher and a road grader, were housed in a
yard adjoining the workshop and the older and more advanced boys were given instruction in the
working of this machinery.

The attendance of the boys was very regular throughout the year and their general health was
good. The school held an exhibition of work and exercises done by the students in some rooms at
the Palace at the same time as the girls’ schools showed their embroidery and needlework.