PLACING BOYS

Hawke's Bay Tribune, Volume XIX, Issue 30, 22 January 1929, Page 8

PLACING BOYS

AN URGENT PROBLEM AUCKLAND Auckland, Jan. 18. The urgent problem of finding suitable employment for boys and girls leaving school was debated at a conference held in Auckland last week. The meeting was attended by representatives of the Auckland Educational Society, Rotary Club. Y.M.C.A., Chamber of Commerce, and headmasters of schools, all of whom have been giving consideration to this matter for some time past in view of the fact that the difficulty of placing boys and girls suitably has been increasing and has been giving considerable concern also to the Labour Department and the Education Department,, the meeting decided to make an appeal to individual employers as far as possible to make vacancies for at least one boy this summer. This would tend to prevent the evil of young people developing bad habits through idleness.

The meeting was summoned bv the Labour Department mainly with a view to securing co-ordination among tile various associations and departments interested in the matter. The meeting was practically unanimous in agreeing that permanent machinery to facilitate the proper placing of young people leaving school should be set up in those centres where the problem is acute, and that this machinery should be under the control, not of the Labour Department, but of the Education Department, the latter being more closely in touch with the actual qualifications and aptitudes of the individual young people leaving school. It is thought that this machinery might take the form of a permanent committee in each such centre operating under the control of the Education Department and representing such interests as the Labour Department, head teachers of primary and secondary schools, employers’ associations labour unions, farming interests. Public Service Association. and Public Service Commissioner’s office, Chamber of Commerce. Y.M.C.A., Y.W.C.A.. and the Rotary Club. The result of the meeting is being communicated to the Minister for Labour, who is being asked to receive a deputation on the subject early next month, when the Minister for Education will also be in Auckland.