Sara Allsop on the good and bad of training in New Zealand

Sara Allsop talks about the good and the bad of training to be a hairdresser in New Zealand.

Obviously there are only two ways to train as a hairdresser in New Zealand; through fulltime course or through an apprenticeship within a salon.

I personally believe that there are pros and cons to both sides, starting with the full time courses, originally set up in the early 90’s with both Cut Above and Servilles offering one-year full time courses. These have now progressed to become essentially two courses with a graduate course now on offer.

I have to say that I was instrumental in writing and establishing the programme of the first graduate course offered at Cut Above, and when we wrote it, it was really about giving the trainee solid dressing skills and finishing of the basics in cutting. I really believe that these course programs are well written and have all the right information attached to them.

Where they sometimes fall short of good training is that you are so heavily dependant on the tutor that is teaching the programme: one being a good hairdresser and two, being a good trainer, and unfortunately you can’t have one without the other. As a student if you end up on a full time course with a tutor who is lacking in one of these skills then I believe you never receive and learn skills/techniques and information vital to setting you up in the world of hairdressing.

That said, apprenticeship training also has its downfalls. In the same way if you start working in a salon that does not offer structured training then you can be left, one, cleaning and sweeping for a long period of time and two, not having good solid skills once you have completed your apprenticeship.

I believe that if the industry was regulated as it is in Australia, then we would have qualified hairdressers owning and operating salons and hence the training standard would have to increase. I also find it unfortunate that if a salon does not belong to the NZRAH then they are left having to pay an apprentice subsidy to HITO of approx $400, which is a deterrent for salon owners to sign trainees up as apprentices which then leads to this vicious cycle of untrained and unqualified hairdressers.

I think something has to change, and change quick, as I think we are losing a lot of good solid foundation skills, especially in the big centres, and this would be devastating for the future of our industry.