BOYS FOR LAND

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXII, Issue 22241, 16 October 1935, Page 15

BOYS FOR LAND

SPECIAL FARM TRAINING EXPERIMENTAL SCHEME TRUST FUND PROVISIONS [BY TELEGRAPH —SPECIAL REPORTER] WELLINGTON, Tuesday An experimental scheme designed to lead unemployed youths into useful work, already inaugurated in Auckland and shortly to be tried in Canterbury, is outlined in the fifth annual report of the Unemployment Board, which was tabled in the House of Representatives to-day. The scheme consists of the provision of special farm training facilities for a limited number of boys over a period of four or five years. Selected boys who appear to have interest and capacity above the normal will be placed with farmers willing to help them to acquire a practical insight into farming operations. Special trustees, representative of the boys' employment committees and the board, have been appointed to control the scheme, the object of which is to establish a fund sufficient to enable each boy, when his period of training is finished, to be placed on a small holding or else to participate in any scheme of land development which may be operative at the time. The farmer with whom the boy is placed will, of course, provide food and accommodation, and will bo expected to pay a wage commensurate with the boy's services. This remuneration has been fixed tentatively at 5s a week in the fiist year, increasing by 5s to a maximum of £1 5s a week in the fifth year of training. A similar amount is to be found by the Unemployment Board, being kept and supplemented by contributions from the boy to the extent of 20 per cent of his cash wages from the farmer. Apart from utilising such part of this trust money as may be necessary for special training courses, the fund will bo allowed to accumulate until the trainee is fit for establishment on his own property. "While such a scheme is purely experimental." says tho report, "it is at least a definite attempt at vocational training in primary industry. Mere placement of boys on farms may result in permanent employment as farm labourers, but without tho encouragement afforded by some objective such placements are unliktdv to provide new farmers of a calibre able to make a success of farming under modern conditions. "The same argument is applicable to other industries, and, although the Unemployment Act does not specifically direct the board to make provision for the employment of youths, the board has accepted an implied authority, and has, within the scope of available finances and with the valuable co-opera-tion of voluntary organisations, done its very best to relieve immediate distress among unemployed boys."