Broader Education For Girls Sought

Press, Volume CIV, Issue 30769, 5 June 1965, Page 3

Broader Education For Girls Sought

(Neu? Zealand Press Association> WELLINGTON, June 4. A longer and better general non-vocational education for girls was advocated in submissions by the Joint Committee on Women and Employment to the Commission of Inquiry into Vocational Training in Wellington.

The committee, set up in 1964, includes representatives of the Federation of Business and Professional Women’s Clubs, Federation of University Women, and the Y.W.C.A. Its submissions were supported by the National Council of Women and the Council for Equal Pay and Opportunity.

The committee said there should he every opportunity for women to develop their talents and capabilities, there should be adequate means for women to obtain information about all types of occupations available to them, and they should have freedom to choose their own occupations. The submissions said that on paper it would seem that boys and girls had equal chances of a good education in New Zealand, but more girls than boys left post-primary schools before the end of

their third year. The difference in educational achievement was because of the widespread attitude in New Zealand that education was not as important for girls as it was for boys because girls would marry and the time and money spent on their education would be wasted.

The committee, however, I was strongly convinced that j education was never wasted. I A well-educated girl brought; to marriage, home-making, the training of children and her contacts with community organisations a trained mind, a broad vision and an intelligent approach that could not fail to have a profound influence in all her personal and community contacts. It was contended that vocational training courses should be available only after the post-primary education was completed. Girls with a better general education would be more capable of benefitting from them then than earlier, and the courses should be of a higher stan-

dard. The committee considered it essential that girls should have as broad and thorough a post-primary education as possible, that it should be cultural and non-vocational and should include those subjects to make it possible for them to train for highly skilled and technical occupations.

It believed that all courses of vocational training and apprenticeship should be open to girls and women and that girls and women should be encouraged to train for those special occupations for which they showed special aptitude. Attention should be paid to the needs of women with family responsibilities who, in their thirties and forties, were resuming paid employment or seeking employment for the first time and who were in need of special “bridging” courses of training suited to their background and experience, to fit them to play as productive a role as possible in the economy of the country. The committee also emphasised the need for the establishment of a statutory council or committee to carry out research into all aspects of the employment of women, formulate a policy, co-ordinate the work of all organisations I and institutions concerned ! and bring about a wider understanding of the role and I contribution of women in the I labour force.