TRAINING FOR POST OFFICE JUNIOR.

Press, Volume LXVII, Issue 20383, 2 November 1931, Page 11

TRAINING FOR POST OFFICE JUNIOR.

TO THE JSDITOB OF THJS FBESB. Sir, —Concerning the question of the training of Post Office juniors, raised by a correspondent in to-day's Pbess a great many other pertinent questions arise. First, for what reason does the Post Office alone, of all Government Departments, prefer to take boys with a mini* mum of education, thus obliging the Department to double on the sorvice of the secondary schools in teaching boys geometry, magnetism, and electricity (inter alia). It has been the practice in recent years to discourage boys of advanced education from entering the Post Office, though in all other branches of the Public Service a boy may aot enter without a Public Service Entrance, pass, and in point of fact, rarely enrter». without Matriculation, ml-.these,

days of competitioii. Yet there are some branches of the Post Office requiring all the mental qualifications in the maximum degree —notdbly the efficient -Money Order and Savings Bank departments. Could not well-educated boys, requiring no further instruction in any- but the. most technical subjects, be givfn an opportunity of entering such branches of the: service as these! Upon application to the Post Office the answer is invariably, that there are vacancies only for messengers. A boy of advanced education is informed he is too old. This-policy has been adopted, to my' knowledge, for some years, and ib not the result of this year's stringency. And yet the Vocational Guidance book, issued by the Department of Education,-contains the following information from the'regulations of the Post Office: "Appointment by the .competitive' system, with merit as the foundation, exists throughout the Department, This means that the applicant best qualified for each position is selected when vacancies arise. . . . Applicants for employment who have passed the Public Service Entrance or Matriculation examination are eligible for appointment as clerical cadets.'' How many have been so appointed in recent years? Secondary schoolmasters, now threatened with curtailment of their numbers, might pertinently enquire why such an important Government Department should discourage boys of advanced education, in marked contrast to other Departments. And, granting that the Telegraph Office must have messengers, schoolmasters might enquire why comparatively uneducated boys are taken into a Department where it is obviously an advantage for the junior members of the Department to be as well educated as possible ... and all junior officers are required to pass qualifying examinations before they are promoted, and these examinations serve a very useful purpose in determining'the fitness of the candidates." (vide Mr Shanks.) In other words, the fitness of the candidates in. the Post Office is determined long after they enter the . Service; in other departments qf the-Pub-lic Service (clerical division), the fit- • neas is rigidly enquired into before they enter, so mueh'Bo that a boy passing jb.is> examination adtfradecußal peceegt-

j age higher than another is given preference.—Yours, etc., , PUZZLED PARENT. 1 October 30th, 1931. I [Mr F. J. Shanks, Chief Postmaster, 1 when shown . this letter, said; "The .Department is singular, as compared I with other State Departments, in that I it employs a considerable number of ! boys. Everything else being equal, tho j best educated boys offering are selec--1 ted for appointments in the Department. A considerable number of boys with secondary education enter tne service as message boys, and the most suitable of these are promoted to the clerical division. From time_ to tide boys have been, taken on direct as cadets, but that necessarily depends-on the number of vacancies. J"