The alumni, including civil servants and business executives, believe they benefited from the school's emphasis on vocational education.

Now they are banding together to urge Government and companies to do more to encourage technical training.

And they are hoping to raise enough money to offer scholarships and other financial aids.

The group is inviting former students and other interested people to help form the Bermuda Technical Institute Association at a meeting at the Belmont Hotel next week.

Organisers are not aiming to revive the institute, which operated from 1956 to 1972.

But they feel problems like unemployment could be eased with a new emphasis on the kind of training it offered.

"We would like to see technical education become as standard as reading, writing and arithmetic in the educational system, from middle school upwards,'' said Mr. Ross Smith, one of the association's founders.

Mr. Smith, from the institute's class of 1957, was an auto-body repairer and welder after he left the institute. He now has his own computer business, Datascan.

"One common thread in all the former students is that we agree that being exposed to a technical education gives you a problem-solving mentality and an analytical approach to solving problems.

"Our aim is that each child, from the time they hit middle school, would be exposed to a cross-section of technologies, from discussions, from speakers at the schools, and from day-release trips.

"At the senior secondary level they would have some hands-on experience, and at Bermuda College they would get more in-depth training.

"I don't think we can resurrect the insititute, because the economics do not allow for that.

"But I think that by careful utilisation of our resources we can expose our kids to the technical experience and allow them to have a wider field of choice so they can make a career decision based on known facts.'' With the right research, Bermudians could be trained to enter trades dominated by non-Bermudians, he said.

The association would suggest ways of helping unemployed people, said Mr.

Ross.

It would encourage Government to act on its promise to provide a greater choice in technical, craft and vocational training.

And it would urge business people to invest more in the training of young people.

The embryo organisation had already offered its services in helping Government take over the Airport, said Mr. Smith.