TRAINING YOUNG WORKERS

Dominion, Volume 30, Issue 63, 8 December 1936, Page 7

TRAINING YOUNG WORKERS

Need for Regulation oftheSupply VOCATIONAL GUIDANCE AND PLACEMENT

“It appears to be evident that any regulation of the supply of trained workers in industry can only be effective if the recruitment and training of young workers is made independent of the demands from moment to moment of industry,” stated the Superintendent of Technical Education, Mr. W. S. La Trobe, in his report to the Director of Education this year. “Surges of entrants into employment first in one direction and then in another can hardly contribute to a steady state of industrial activity, and are quite inconsistent with reasonable observance of the principles of vocational guidance and placement.” IN general, pupils leave day school during the course of the year as soon as openings are available which are considered desirable in the ruling economic conditions. Thus there is a decided ’ rush from school into employment toward the end of a depression when the demand for young workers becomes strong, the parents being less able than at other times to keep their children at school. Attendance at evening classes follows trade fluctuations very closely, mainly because students do not enrol in special courses until they have secured employment in the occupation which they wish to follow. Both these tendencies are unfortunate. The first can be eliminated by sufficiently raising the upper limit of compulsory fulltime attendance at school. Violent Fluctuations. The tendency for the number of learners in any given trade or industry to fluctuate violently with the rise and fall of employment in that trade or industry produces a kind of resonance effect on unemployment, since too many tradesmen are trained in good times and too few in 'bad times. This is felt most acutely in trades in which the period of apprenticeship is fairly long. The problem of maintaining for every occupation a supply of learners adequate but not excessive for its future requirements is also complicated .by the general difficulties of forecasting when occupations are “changing, disappearing, and being created with bewildering rapidity.” The establishment of trade schools was advocated in one centre, during the year, in connection with one or two occupations, and it is perhaps in this direction that a solution of the difficulties of apprenticeship may ultimately be found possible. The practicability of such schools depends mainly on the concentration of the industries served, and in many much more thickly populated countries, with immensely greater industrial concentrations, trade schools are by no means the regular training grounds of young workers. PEPTONISED EDUCATION American Attitude Better “The American attitude is that nothing succeeds like success, and they do not put anything too difficult in front of a child,” said an Australian educationist recently. “If you want a horse to draw a load you do not, at the outset, give him a load that he cannot draw. They take the same attitude toward children. The main fault of our educational system in Queensland is that we seem to be in a great hurry to cover the course. The curriculum may be rich in places. Children are required to gulp down rich material in a short space of time. They do not have sufficient time for mastication and digestion. They take this rather rich food too quickly and they suffer to some extent from mental indigestion.

“Teachers here endeavour to do a little preliminary mastication. They prepare the food so that it will be easy to take and easy to digest. Have we not been taught that this is the essence of good teaching? Our duty, as teachers, we have been led to believe is to make everything so clear and simple that the child cannot fail to understand if. But is it education, or is it peptonised instruction? I put the question to yon as to whether that method of preparing material in an easy-to-take form is not calculated to economise thought, rather than to stimulate thought. There may be material which is better prepared before-

hand, but, generally speaking, I think that the American method of setting the children to get their own food — setting them out on a voyage of discovery and exploration—is more calculated to stimulate thought.”