Starter Kit. Idea 239 of 500. Cluster 12
Gem-cutting apprenticeships, paid, with the graduates employed by the studios above
The mechanism, from the book
The sapphire is mined here and cut here, and its value is certified in Basel and turned into money in Geneva. Every step of that chain can be built at home, and the first one is the piece of paper.
The first step
Ask 3 master cutters in Colombo or Ratnapura whether each would take one paid apprentice for 6 months if the wage was shared, and what the apprentice would need to learn. Then ask 2 jewellery studios or dealers whether they would employ a graduate. The proof is a master's yes and an employer's written promise of a job.
- Who pays first
- A dealer or studio short of skilled cutters that will pay part of an apprentice's wage to have a trained cutter at the end of it.
- What leaves today
- The cutting skill is ageing out with its masters, and without a new generation the island's one step up the value chain goes abroad too.
Ask first
- Tertiary and Vocational Education Commission. Ask whether a gem-cutting apprenticeship can be registered with a recognised certificate.
- National Gem and Jewellery Authority. Ask whether they run or support training for gem cutters.
Check before you spend
Whether each master cutter signs a contract with the apprentice, who pays the wage, and what certificate the apprentice gets at the end.
Find out these three numbers
- How many master cutters would take a paid apprentice?
- What wage would keep an apprentice from leaving halfway?
- How long before an apprentice cuts stones worth selling?
A comparison from the book
Switzerland. Chapter Fourteen
"The apprentice signs a contract with a real company, works and earns 3 or 4 days a week"
A paid apprentice under contract learns while earning, and the cutter keeps the skill at home.
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.