GIRLS AND WORK

Auckland Star, Volume LXXIV, Issue 33, 9 February 1943, Page 5

GIRLS AND WORK

FOB WOMEN

EFFECT OF THE WAR NOT LEAVING SCHOOL EARLY "Most young girls are sensible enough to realise that without proper education and training they are unlikely to have a future in any career. They are aware that it is silly to rush into a job because of the good wages offered, and that it is better to stay at school." This statement was made to-day by Miss C. J. Vickery, Girls' Vocational Guidance Officer, when commenting on the effect of wartime conditions on young girls seeking employment. She added: "It is the boys, far more than the girls, who are leaving school in their early teens." Miss Vickery spoke, however, of the grave wrong done to those girls who did leave school at an early age. "Often girls leave school and begin work at 13, some of them being no further on than the sth standard. As a rule, after a short time they come back to us, not having been satisfactory in their job. We then send them to another, but more often than not, they continue to change jobs at intervals. "We feel strongly on this matter, for these young girls are nearly always the one's who prove unsatisfactory in work. It is a great pity that their parents do not give them at least one year at a secondary school." Miss Vickery said that the girls who came to them were the younger ones, of 14 to 18. They placed a great many in offices and in dressmaking. Some were adverse to going into essential industries. The excessive wage problem did not affect the younger girls as much as the boys, though many of them began work at a higher wage than was formerly the case.