COLLEGE OF RETAILING.

Evening Star, Issue 26029, 18 February 1947, Page 10

COLLEGE OF RETAILING.

TO THE EDITOR. Sir, —With reference to the published report of a statement made to the Otago Retailers’ Association by Miss P. A. Fallaver, I would like to clarity the position to your readers by giving tlie other side of the picture, as the majority of those most concerned dare not. Miss Fallaver claims that her. students are uot particularly interested and ’have no outside interests, but 1 ask you what interest any young person can raise when he or she is practically ordered to take a course that depletes the already meagre pittance received by six guineas. In addition the golden promises of national participation and universal acceptance of the diploma to be gained, are not borne out by the number of firms that are not represented or have even advised their juniors against such schemes, which have been started in hope and died in despair, perhaps a dozen times in the past decade. Admittedly something should be- done about teaching junior assistants their job, but to my mind the idea of paying apprentice wages is to teach them the job as it is done by the firm for which they worlc. Instead they are required to pay out their six guineas to be taught methods that do not apply to their job and be told that the system followed by their firm for 80 years is incorrect. . *

I think that if Miss Fallaver were to ask her pupils she would be surprised at the number that represent their firms eacli week at cricket, basketball, baseball, and football, as well as in inarching teams. In addition, some have represented the province at sport. Finally, with regard to the number of students that did not return papers, I can only say that questions couched in such infantile language and approached in such a round-about manner deserve to be ignored. For after all the New, Zealand education. standard is fairly high, and most of the students have come from high schools and technical colleges—not kindergartens. Hoping this may point out that our younger shop assistants are as much sinned against as sinning.—l am, etc.-, Feb. 15. P. A. Macmaster.