Children ‘should be prepared for work’

Press, 13 February 1981, Page 18

Children ‘should be prepared for work’

“When children are' taken on school visits to the zoo they should not . only be shown the elephant but the elephant-keeper,” according to Mr K. V. Pankhurst,. an O.E.C.D. official based in Paris and Ottawa. He was expressing an opinion on the extent worktraining schemes should pervade school life. Learning about work should be part of all school life, and be implemented as early as possible, he said. Mr Pankhurst is the representative of th-* Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development responsible for education and the working life. He was in Christchurch briefly yesterday to “sit in” on an Education Department conference on the transition from school to the work-force. He was on his way. to an education conference in Australia, had stopped-over in Wellington, and side-tracked when told about the Christchurch conference. The conference has been set up to assess the effectiveness of work-training schemes throughout New Zealand since their approval by the Government. It has also been designed to look to the future, to evaluate what else should be done.

It is attended by representatives of the National Advisory Committee on Women, by members of the Maori community, the Employers’ Federation, the Labour Department, the Federation of Labour, the Education Department, and by teacher representatives. According to the Assistant Director-General of Educa--1 tion (Mr J. A. Ross) it was

one of 'several, discussions ensuing from the setting up of a series of “regional meetings” last year. The director of the conference, Mr H. McQueen, Mr Ross and Mr Pankhurst agreed with the “elephantkeeper” principle.

"Preparing for life must be for the world of work as well as for leisure,” Mr McQueen said. “We have to look closely at the curricula we are offering children Maybe work training needs great emphasis.” . A wide variety of related topics have been raised at the conference, including ■* discussion of schcjol references which give realistic indications of a pupil’s ability to an employer, and the H future of the University Entrance examination. Children likely to find jobs easily are not to be ignored in the discussions. “We have to think not just about the unemployed. There is still a majority’ in continuous employment and they need to be prepared for all the problems that arise, ; Mr Pankhurst said. . The problems inherent U>. the transition to the workforce were common to al> the O.E.C.D. countries, ho said. All industrialised countries were groping for solutions. These lay in prepping people for work righLWin the early stages of school.