HELP IN THE HOME

Dominion, Volume 38, Issue 2, 27 September 1944, Page 6

HELP IN THE HOME

Opposition members who drew attention in Parliament to the urgency of the domestic service problem are to be commended for raising the question. Their inquiries elicited the fact that this pressing matter was no further advanced toward a solution. The Prime Minister observed in the course of his remarks on the subject that the time had come when a new approach to the question must be found. This leaves the whole thing in the air. In the meantime many hardships are being experienced in homes, especially in the rural districts, where the need of domestic assistance is urgent, and acutely felt. The women’s organizations in their respective spheres are doing what they can with such domestic personnel as the manpower authorities are able to obtain for them. But this is a hand-to-mouth method. Over a year ago a conference of the women’s organizations was convened in Wellington by the Minister of Health, Mr. Nordmeyer, to discuss the matter. No constructive developments have yet made their appearance. It is a constructive policy that is needed. Conference talks and resolutions thus far have got nowhere. Yet the way to a solutionis surely clear enough. Domestic service must be given a recognized status which will endow it with a dignity and responsibilities of its own, as in nursing, or teaching. Entrants should be properly trained for its variety of duties, and hold certificates of qualification that would give a distinctive cachet to their calling. This presumes training establishments, and the consequential question of providing for these in a special department branch of the public education system, as with technical education for the provision of training in various other crafts. These training schools for domestic service would form, in a sense, the primary approach to the courses in home science in the curricula of the university.

There could be no better preparation for the duties and responsibilities of wifehood and motherhood than such a course.of training. Its ultimate general effect would be to raise the average standard of efficiency in domestic management as well as in domestic assistance. Here is a thought for a Government which at the moment seems to be barren of constructive ideas on the subject.