NEED FOR YOUTH WORKERS

Press, Volume LXXXVII, Issue 26512, 29 August 1951, Page 3

NEED FOR YOUTH WORKERS

METHODIST SYNOD HEARS REPORT

The urgent need for teachers and leaders in every field of youth enterprise was emphasised in a report presented by the Rev. J. K. Watson, for the youth department, at the annual synod of the Methodist Church in North Canterbury yesterday. ' “Leaders must be recruited from those who were born during a record low-level birth-rate period between 1929 and 1939,” said the report. “The expected flow of children into our Sunday schools and later Bible classes will come froip a record high-level birth-rate period between 1940 and 1950.”

This increase in population would greatly increase the demand fdr teachers and leaders, added the report. Statistics of actual and expected full-time pupils on all day school rolls were given in the report. They showed that between 1930 and 1943 total rolls remained about 280,000.’ By 1950, rolls had, risen to 348.000—an average yearly increase of 10,000. It was estimated that the rolls would have risen to 435,000 by 1955—an average yearly increase of 17,000—and to 480,000 in 1960, an increase of 200,000 in 17 years. “From these figures, it may be assumed that the number of young people in the care of the Methodist Church should increase from about 35,000 in 1950 to approximately 45,000 in 1960,” the report concluded.