EDUCATION FOR BUSINESS.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIII, Issue 121, 24 May 1932, Page 13

EDUCATION FOR BUSINESS.

Your report of the discussion which took place at the last meeting of tho Education Board will be of interest |; to the thousands of boys and girls who j have just left school, and who are won- | dering what good to them is the educa- , tion they have received. I think that , the remarks of Mr. H. S. W. King might , well be considered seriously by our educa- ( tion authorities. There arc even at the ( present time plenty of openings for boys leaving school, if they had even an J elementary training in business methods ( and principles. Professions and trades , are at a low ebb; nevertheless, executive j heads are linding it dillicult to engage | young men and women who have even an j elementary knowledge of the essentials | of commercial life—a knowledge of economics, salesmanship, banking, exchange, tariffs, shorthand, typing, etc. What is wrong with our education system when matriculation students arc being turned out in hundreds and are walking the ' stroyts, willing to accept any position? j These students are crammed full of use- ' less French and Latin, and yet if our education authorities would see lit to 1 give these boys and girls a course of • business training in their compulsory syllabus there would be considerably less unemployment. Whether man is a farmer, a cabinetmaker, a mechanic, a doctor, a shopkeeper, or an employee, how important in these times of stafl reductions is a knowledge of bookkeeping, banking and other business problems. Have your readers ever stopped to think that a considerable amount of unemployment is due to inefticient employers—employers ignorant of the pitfalls of lack of knowledge, of the very first essentials of solid business foundations? These men fail through inellieieney—through lack of trainingthrough the failure of our education authorities to meet the changed conditions that liavo prevailed and are prevailing. The. result is liquidation or bankruptcy, and more employees out of a job. " STANLEY B. WATERS.