Programme criticised

Press, 27 June 1983, Page 8

Programme criticised

The Schoolleavers Training and Employment Preparation Scheme is leading nowhere for many young unemployed people, according to the National Youth Council. The organisation’s president, Ms Sue Bond, said that several complaints about the scheme had been received, the most serious relating to the way the scheme promoted the myth that voune neonle were unemployed because they needed some sort of training. “With tens of thousands of people out of work, schoolleaver unemployment can hardly be attributed to a lack of job readiness among school-leavers,” she said. Many organisations were interested in running life skills and recreation 'programmes to help young people cope with unemploy-

ment. Under the S.T.E.P.S. scheme, these programmes had to be offered as “work preparation,” which was seen as falsely raising young people’s hopes. The council had also

received complaints of unscrupulous employers using trainees as cheap labour, lack of continued support for trainees, and lack of attention to the’ needs of Maori and Pacific Island school-leavers.