‘Drop-outs’ getting another chance from new back-to-school scheme

Press, 16 February 1978, Page 15

‘Drop-outs’ getting another chance from new back-to-school scheme

About 40 per cent of Australia’s unemployed are under 21—that fearsome statistic was revealed recently by the Federal Minister for Education (Senator Carrick). The Australian Government, he said, was sponsoring various retraining schemes “to lift the young people’s esteem, in an attempt to make them employable.” The same problem is prevalent in New Zealand, and PETER MINSON reports on one scheme to combat it . . .

“...wish they could have a second chance.”

The 109-year-old Mount Grey Downs School, for tne last three years a rehabilitation centre for boys, ts going back into tne education business. Youths have lived there as part of a family, helping to run the centre and working in the Ashley district, under the

"charge” for the last year of Alan and Jan Stewart, who have five children of their own.

Now, Mr and Mrs Stewart, after several years of experience with city youth behind them, are embarking on a new scheme — the emphasis being on “going back to secondary school.” The Christchurch Anglican City Mission has run the centre as a place where young men can “get away from the city scene” and learn to settle into a stable living-and-■working pattern. "Now we see the need for the guys to go back to school so that they can further themselves instead

ot just returning to a similar environment they were in before,” says Mr Stewart. "Often they have expressed a desire to improve themselves and improve their job prospects. Because of a lack of education they were not able to get the joos they might have liked and preferred to do.” The youths will live at the centre for a school terra, but instead of trying to obtain jobs in the neighbourhood, they will attend classes at Hagley High School three days a week and be taught two days a week at the centre. A full-time teacher, .Mrs Elizabeth Woodward, will supervise the classes at the centre; she will also be part of the staff at Hagley High. The Education Department has allocated a prefabricated classroom for the centre.

Many of those who have lived at the Mount Grey centre intend to return to take advantage

of the new re-entry scheme. “Very few of them say they don’t want it.” Mr Stewart says. “It has been more or less by a consensus of opinion from which the idea has grown: from what the youths have been saying rather than us saying ‘This is what you need.’ “It has come from

them. They have said: ‘This is what we want to do, but we can’t. We can’t afford to go back to school full-time. How can we keep a flat, how can vve live? There’s no way of supporting ourselves’.” A pilot scheme along similar lines had been tun in Napier by a Church Army officer, Captain Peter Coughlan, who is

now City Missioner in Christchurch. At Napier, the youths did not live- tn an environment such as the “family” at Mount Grey centre. They were supported in their studies, but lived in various parts of the city.

Mr Stewart feels that the added support of a Christian family will help the youths in their studies. And that the teaching at the centre will help them to get used to ciass work again. Many have been out of the school system for some years.

“To start with the youths won’t be able to move into a five-day-a-week programme because of the type of environment they have been involved with in the past. Having them in two different places, with a wide and varied programme, will keep them motivated and interested,” says Mr Stewart.

“Also, they will have personal teacher involve both here and at Hagh High. This will help then to feel that they hav somebody who can, ii private, and withou embarrassment, help thei with homework and giv. other advice.”

Ihe principal of HagleHigh School (Miss R. E Heinz) has become closely involved with the scheme She volunteered to wort on the committee which selects the youths, and she will work out teaching plans appropriate to each. The school courses will be chosen to suit a youth’s individual needs. Some of them may complete School Certificate or University Entrance courses: others may learn to read and write.

Already, two young men have started the programme and others have applied, but there will be a deadline so that the youths can join courses at appropriate times.

Some youths have expressed misgivings about going back to school with younger pupils — "I’m ' scared they’ll all look at me” — but the organisers feel that both the number of adults already attending Hagley courses and the size of the group working from the centre, will help to ease the youths into school life again. Each youth must be over 18, and will receive a benefit through the Departments of Social Welfare and of Labour, both of which have been involved in the planning of the scheme. Each will pay board at the centre.

The aim of the programme is to “get them over the hump” and into the secondary education system again, in the hope that by the end of one school term, the youths will be sufficiently interested to continue their studies. “They may then be eligible for some sort of bursary, depending on performance, but that hasn’t been decided yet,” Mr Stewart says. “If they’re under 19 they can continue on free at school anyway. Those over 19 may have to attend night school if they

are sitting School Certificate or University Entrance.”

The term at the centre will be the first stage. The second stage will be for each youth to move in with a family in Christchurch, and from there continue his classes.

Several families have asked to be part of the scheme. Mr Stewart, who will take the youths into Christchurch ~on their school days, will spend the daytime arranging for and advising families who wish to take youths, or who have already taken them. "We will be doing continuing follow-up with those families, and with the youths,” he adds.

Mr and Mrs Stewart do not see the scheme as an experiment “I see it as a need being met,” Mr Stewart says. “I see it as a stepping-stone,” Mrs Stewart adds.

“It’s starting off something, not only for u s, but hopefully something that will catch on. There are an awful lor of kids coming away from school at about the fourth form who have had a few years in the big wide world and wish they could have another chance,” says Mrs Stewart.

“They have matured in that time, seen that they have made a wrong choice. We’re trying to

make that decision reversible, so they can go forward and improve themselves.

‘We are not saying that education is the total answer, but at least it will give them an opportunity to sort things out. with help from other people who have perhaps been through the same things, or older people who are now going to take an interest in them.”

The “help” received at the centre will include the “basic advantage of being members of a stable

family,” and counselling where it is needed. The teaching on the two days at the centre will include such subjects as marriage, relationships, sex, bringing up children, discipline, and communication. “This is partly why it’s so important to have the tv.'o days up here, because there will be other areas of life looked at which would never be touched in a school,” Mrs Stewart says. "A lot of boys we come in contact with haven’t had a tremendously good experience of home; don’t really know what they

want out of marriage, a family, or how to bring up children. There’s an awful lot of basic home training needed.” Mr and Mrs Stewart will be conducting these lessons. “We will be taking real-life experiences and examples, and doing teaching programmes on many aspects of life.” Mr Stewart says. “I think it’s important that the young men also hear of the problems in marriage, and of how cope with them and of

g to cope with them e and overcome them; to s accept that there are e problems when two people i, come together and are ? expected by society to fit together like a hand in a glove. It doesn’t work that 5 way. It’s a matter of e working at marriage on e both sides.” s Why Mount Grey 3 Downs, which is about n 45km from Hagley High t School? “It’s away from • the city environment; tr away from the social life, a It’s far enough away for d contact to be broken with t what the guys call *bad y associations.’

“After they've been here for a while they say. ‘lt's good to be away — we different, and to grow in>o something different, because we haven’t got that constant pressure of the boys asking us to come down to the puo.' "So it’s an isolation period, and it gives them an opportunity to get to 'know other people who are doing a similar type of thing and wanting to improve their lot; and to make new friends who are interested in doing the same thing.” The disadvantage of the nearby Rangiora High School would have been that the youths would not have settled in Rangiora after the term at the centre. That would have meant another upheaval when they moved back to Christchurch. The scheme will not increase the cost of running the centre. Each youth will pay board from the benefit he receives. In the past there have been periods when youths could not find work, or when they have left without paying board owed, “or shot through on payday.” Although the scheme can accept oniy youths at this stage, both Mr and Mrs Stewart hope that a similar plan can be developed for young women.