YOUTH CENTRE

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXV, Issue 23019, 22 April 1938, Page 12

YOUTH CENTRE

| NEW STATE PLAN 3 I GUIDANCE IN CAREERS BOYS AND FARM LIFE ■ ' * With its scope extended in the direction of vocational guidance and aftercare of youthy the youth - employment branch of the State Placement Service has been renamed the Government Youth Centre. The reorganisation involves Lhw appointment of extra staff, several members of which are specialists, and an intimate relationship with the schools under a policy by which selective training will be given before the child leaves a school. The functions of the centre will also now extend to girls as well as boys. In explaining steps that have and are to be taken under a policy adopted by the Government, Mr. N. G. Gribble, secretary of the centre, said that seven years ago, when the Boys' Employment Committee first established the movement which has led to the Youth Centre with wider ramifications, its policy was to relievo unemployment among boys. It then realised that New Zealand's recovery depended largely on increased" primary' production, and it took advantage of the needs of the basic industry in placing boys, that being the only field of employment that I was to any extent open. | Lessons from Farm Placements No boys' employment organisation in the Dominion had done more in placing youths on farms than the Auckland one. In seven years over 2200 boys j had been put on farms, their careers | watched and help in many directions j given to them. Many persons imagined j that the attractions in the, country were not sufficient to hold boys, but the Auckland organisation had proved the contrary. It obtained periodical figures of boys it had placed who subsequently had abandoned farming. The lowest loss in one period was 3 per cent; the highest 10 per cent. Lessons learned in what had proved to be a successful experiment would be applied in the wider sphere of the Youth Centre. It was found that the largest percentage of boys leaving school were interested in engineering as a career. In Christchurch the proportion was three times greater than m Auckland. It was obvious that the capacity of many trades and professions to absorb labour was very limited. Farming the Basia The whole problem had as its axis the farming industry. It must be apparent, for example, that if agricultural and pastoral production dropped by, 10 per cent the engineering industry, so favoured by many boys, would especially suffer in the directions in which it catered for the basic industry. Tho Auckland organisation had shown that there was ample opportunity for boys eventually to establish themselves as proprietors of farms. Many of the boys under the farm settlement scheme, for example, were in a fair way, through their industry and their savings, which would be added to by a substantial contribution from the Government, to enjoy before very long the pride and absorbing interest of owning farms. ' Whatever type of industry the re-sources-of the centre, with the assistance of career masters and mistresses in the schools, helped a boy or girl to enter, there would be the essential safeguard that supervision and guidance would extend into employment. Where it was thought necessarv the centre would endeavour to transfer a bov or girl, if the initial venture - were unsuccessful, to the work in which he or she appeared suited and contented.