VOCATIONAL DESTINATIONS OF PUPILS

Otago Daily Times, Issue 21774, 13 October 1932, Page 11

VOCATIONAL DESTINATIONS OF PUPILS

TO THE EDITOR,

Sir, —I have read with considerable interest the report of the Minister of Education iu your Saturday’s issue on the vocational destinations of pupils leaving school. It is clear to all right-thinking people that an enormous national loss in time, money, and disappointed hopes results from the failure of those responsible to take adequate steps to ensure that the young are induced to enter occupations which offer a reasonably good prospect of providing them with a livelihood when they attain to adult status, say 21 years and upwards. While the report of the Minister is useful and in the direction of public enlightenment, I regret that it does not adequately describe the exact position. For instance, we are told that 5004 (53 per cent.) of the boys, and 4910 (51 per cent.) of the girls, enter upon a post-primary education, while 1115 hoys (about 11 per cent.) ami 3755 girls (39 per cent.) go “home.” This means that no exact data exist, or arc supplied in the Minister’s report, concernin'; the ultimate destination of 64 per cent, of the hoys and 90 per cent, of the girls. Surely the Minister would require to supplement his investigations considerably, say, by taking a census of the pupils leaving secondary schools in the same year. We might then be able to gather a more accurate view of the real state of vocational destinations in this Dominion, and I am sure that great benefits would accrue from the dissemination of such information, both to individuals and to the nation. It has always seemed desirable to me that the task of selecting avenues of work should not be left to haphazard private judgment and selection, often subject to local accidental

opportunities, but that tbe entire business should become a national concern, systematised and controlled by the Government, which is obviously the only authority able to deal with the question thoroughly on a national scale. I suggest that a quota could be fixed for each well-established industry, subject to annual review, and that this would , prevent any industry from absorbing more young persons than could afterwards be maintained by that occupation. At the present time we see boys and girls eagerly pressing forward to snap jobs in callings which can only give them a few years’ work, after which they will find they arc not wanted by anyone in the trade or occupation which they spent-years to learn. These employments are getting to be fairly well known and recognised • as “ blind alley ” occupations, because the young are being eternaljy called for in them by the employers at low. rates of pay, while the men and women'walk the streets vainly seeking work. I am not an authority on this subject, hence cannot name all the lines which fall in this category, but know positively that occupations such as drapery, stationery, most shops and warehouses, many clerical jobs, building, and various others, are decidedly undesirable as avenues of life work, because the employers are not able or willing to absorb men and women in -regular employment. At the same time they always march along cheerfully to the Arbitration Court or Conciliation Council and tell the Government that they want the wages of the boys and girls kept low in order to dissuade them from entering such callings. What they really want is a good supply of “ cheap labour.". Otherwise they would step along like fair and honourable men and demand tlie imposition of a quota to restrict the numbers of entrants. Naturally they am not greatly concerned whether the senior workers get a high, nominal wage or not, because •when they are assured of a plentiful supply of youths they do not need many men. The same remark applies to the girls and women. Why not be frank and admit that the wage does not matter, because they do not intend to engage the men and women, except, perhaps in a casual or temporary capacity? I myself am a shop assistant, and, having suffered to a great extent by the unfair conditions, as well as having seen many other good, Honest, competent and willing mien ruined thereby, feel that it is my duty to warn parents and others of the pitfalls which await the unwary in these superficially attractive, but in reality very unpromising, fields of endeavour. The question to put to yourself, or your son or daughter, is, “What can this occupation do for its men and women?” Hoping that I may do some good to others by drawing pointed attention to this undoubted public evil, wdiich has been so long in our midst, and that ■some steps may be taken to remedy the matter in the near future.—l am, etc., Unemployed Draper. Duhcdin, October 11.