THE SCHOOL AGE

Evening Post, Volume CXXXI, Issue 3, 4 January 1941, Page 6

THE SCHOOL AGE

RAISED IN NEW SOUTH WALES

The Youth Welfare Bill, the primary object of which is to raise the schoolleaving age from 14 to 15 years, has passed the Legislative Assembly of New South Wales.

The Bill will take effect on January 1, 1941. The school-leaving age is advanced to 15 years in two years and through three stages.. For 1941, the age is 14 years and 4 months, for 1942. 14 years and 8 months, and 1943 and subsequent years, the age is 15 years. Children who reach the ar,e of 14 years before January 1, ISII, will be exempt from the requirements of the Bill. The Bill also empowers the Minister to establish an advisory committee on youth welfare. The Minister of Education (Mr. Drummond) said that despite such facilities as bursaries and technical education, if this legislation was not passed, 22,500 boys snd girls between 14 and 15 years of age would leave school in 1941. Tn other words, he added, the voluntary system of education beyond 14 years, despite all the advantages of free tuition, had proved defective as a means of retaining children beyond the primary stage.

This increase in-the leaving age is described by a leading headmaster as "the greatest education reform of the decade." He said: "This will enable many boys who had previously been turned out into' 'dead-end' jobs to obtain another year's schooling, at a stage in their development when it will have a very great value. They will not be sufficiently old to have been given the necessary background of knowledge and.'.interest in world affairs to become citizens . capable or sound and independent judgments, but it can at least be made a move towards direct education for citizenship."