"BLIND ALLEYS"

Evening Post, Volume CVI, Issue 143, 14 December 1923, Page 8

"BLIND ALLEYS"

PERIL BOYS SHOULD AVOID

LABOUR DEPARTMENT TAKING ACTION,

One of the objects of the Apprentices Act passed last session was to devise means of enabling boys to avoid blind alley occupations on leaving school.

The Labour Department is now taking steps to this end, and the teachers of primary schools in sixteen districts are being circularised by the Labour Department, calling on them, in accordance with the Statute, to preparu reports on every boy who is leaving school at the end of the year to seek employment. A report will bo required regarding the' educational standard of each boy, and particular subjects iv which he has shown aptitude, and any remarks the head teacher wishes ti> make regarding the suitability of the pupils for some occupation. These reports are to b e prepared in triplicate, one being given to the boy's parents, another furnished to the district officer of the Labour Department, and the third being retained by the head teacher. There is an invitation to the parent on. his copy of the report to make application to the Labour Department for employment for his boy, indicating' the kind preferred. The annual registration of factories is being pushed forward this year so us to secure the usual information iv January^ together with an indication from each factory owner as to the number of vacancies for various occupations under his control. It is hoped that this information may be usefully applied in placing boys in regard to whom reports have been submitted by their old teachers.

Officers of the Labour Department aro placing before teachers a special article pointing out what the new conditions of apprenticeship are, and stressing tjie importance of skilled trades as compared with unskilled work.