Starter Kit. Idea 227 of 500. Cluster 11
Peeler training schools, since the skill is disappearing and it is the whole value
The mechanism, from the book
The imitation out-earns the original. Vietnam earns more from cassia than Sri Lanka does from true cinnamon, because the cassia arrives on the shelf as a product and the cinnamon arrives at the port as a bale.
The first step
Ask 3 master peelers in the south-west how many apprentices they have and what they would charge to train one for a season. Then ask 5 cinnamon processors whether they would pay a trained peeler more, and pay part of the training. The proof is a fee from a master and a processor willing to fund one trainee.
- Who pays first
- A cinnamon processor who cannot find skilled peelers and loses grade and price every season because the quills are cut badly.
- What leaves today
- The peeling skill is the whole value of the quill, and as peelers age out, the island risks losing the one thing cassia cannot copy.
Ask first
- Tertiary and Vocational Education Commission. Ask whether a peeler training course can be registered and its certificate recognised.
- Department of Export Agriculture. Ask whether they support or know of any peeler training now.
Check before you spend
Whether the master peelers agree to teach and examine, and who pays each apprentice while learning, before the first trainee starts.
Find out these three numbers
- How many master peelers in the district would take an apprentice?
- What do processors pay a skilled peeler per kilo of quills?
- How long does an apprentice take to peel at full grade?
A comparison from the book
Switzerland. Chapter Fourteen
"Swiss studies find most firms earn back what an apprentice costs them before the apprenticeship even ends."
A paid apprentice can pay back the processor during training, so ask processors to share the wage.
The test
Does it keep value that now leaves the island, or build the proof that lets somebody else do so?
From the appendix of Why Not Sri Lanka? by Dr Maheshika Halbeisen. The idea and the mechanism are the book's; this kit was written for the site.