OUTLOOK FOR BOYS.

Press, Volume LXVII, Issue 20382, 31 October 1931, Page 19

OUTLOOK FOR BOYS.

PROBLEM IN AUSTRALIA. THOUSANDS SOON TO LEAVE SCHOOL. ' (fbom ocb owh correspondent..) SYDNEY, October 22. One of Australia's biggest problems —and no doubt New Zealand's also — is that of its army of boys who have either left school, or are shortly leaving school, with little or no hope of finding jobs. In another month or two, in Sydney thousands more boys—probably 10,000 at a conservative estimate—will bo leaving the school gates behind them tor the last, time, along with hundreds if not thousands, who have put in an extra year at school simply because they could not find anything to do at the beginning of the year. Parents have taken the attitude that it is better to leave »their boys at school than to see them loafing about the streets and getting into mischief. Occasionally, in the wanted columns of the daity newspapers, a messenger boy is required. Beyond that, there is little or nothing. Some time ago, Canon R. B. S. Hammond and Dr. Richard Arthur, M.L.A., tried to raise a few hundred pounds for a scheme to place about 30 lioys on an area of good and cheap land, hot far from Sydney, but they were unsuccessful. The problem of the boy is now so acute that some of tho suburban councils, especially those in industrial areas, are giving it special consideration. The problem of children about to leave school has become so acute that the appointment of an economic adjustments committee ■to deal with the position has been proposed. This, .body, it is suggested, should be representative of various interested organisations, and of industries generally. In normal years, tho number of children who leave school each year in New South Wales is 25,000. The school population increases each year by 10,000; but this year, in consequence of the . abnormal times, it has increased by 16,000. The question has been advanced, of raising the school age to 15 years, in order to keep children of 14 off the labour market, and thus perhaps aid their elder brothers and,sisters in obtaining jobs; but to raise the school age would cost about £500,000 a year, or more at a period when no. loan moneys are available, and when the education estimates are being ruthlessly cut. It is a huge problem, and, from the standpoint of parents, an appalling one.