Committees set up to run work courses

Press, 2 February 1982, Page 6

Committees set up to run work courses

Committees to help secondary schools with “school-to-work” courses have been set up by the Education Department in five South Island cities.

Trade unions, employers, teachers, and the Labour arid Education Departments are represented on the commutes which will start meetirig next week. They will advise schools on what sort of courses to run, and coordiriate the courses in their area.

The first committees are in Christchurch, Timaru, Greymouth, Dunedin, and Invercargill but smaller committees will be set up in other centres.

The. inspector who has guided the formation of the committees, Mr R. F. Young, of the Education Department in Christchurch, said that they were part of the effort to provide courses which would prepare pupils for work.

Schools were allowed to run pre-employment or work-experience courses last year. Organisation was left to individual schools. The new committees would work out the best sorts of courses for the different areas and make sure that they were run according to Education Department rules. Mr Young said. They would not take away the freedom schools had to work out schemes with individual employers. The committees would be a forum for groups interested in education, and membership would be open to groups outside those now contributing. They would meet once a year or on demand, to deal with problems. Mr Young said that the department wanted most schools to offer school-to-work courses, and the committees would encourage schools to run them.