HOUSEHOLD WORKERS

Evening Post, Volume CIX, Issue 74, 28 March 1930, Page 15

HOUSEHOLD WORKERS

WOMEN'S TRAINING HOSTEL

(From "Tho Post's" Representative.) LONDON, 20 th February. Arrangements have been made between the Oversea Settlement Department of the Dominions Office and the | Society for the Oversea Settlement of! British Women, whereby the Women's! Training Hostel at Market Harborough. which was established over two years ago as a centre for training young wo- j men for household employment in Australia, will be taken over and managed by the society as from Ist April. This hostel was set up as tho result i of a proposal made at the Imperial Conference of 1926 that the Dominion Governments should co-operate with the British Government in training or testing people in this country before their settloment^oversea. The Australian Government agreed, as an experiment, to cooperate in the establishment and management of a training hostel for women household workers. Tho change of management follows the announcement that the Australian Government did not see their way at the present juncture to continue its contribution to the expenses of the hostel, although it agreed to continue the grant of free passages to such household workers as-eould be placed by the State Governments'. In future women will be accepted for settlement in Canada and New Zealand as well as in Australia. -'. The Oversea Settlement Department has agreed to continue to share the expenses of carrying on the hostel. Since the commencement of ■ the training courses in 1927 the'hostel has maintained a high record of success, and higjily satisfactory reports have been received periodically from Australia on the progress made by those trained there. The numbers sailing in 1928 and 1929 were 266 and 258 respectively, these figures representing no fewer than 11 per cent, and 15 per cent. of. the total number of women who in .those two years were granted free passages to Australia as household workers.. Very\ few of these have failed to settle down satisfactorily and, happily oversea; -