THE MONEY VALUE OF TECHNICAL EDUCATION.

Otago Witness, Issue 2762, 20 February 1907, Page 14

THE MONEY VALUE OF TECHNICAL EDUCATION.

Last week I gave you a portion of an article I read some time ago, " Why Send the Boy to a High School?" and this week I am inserting 1 a diagram which was used! some time ago to show the value of a higher education measured in money. It is not yet too late to enter the " High School as a free scholar, and in any case the lesson of the diagram will also apply to the technical classes, which will be in full swing again in a month or so. It is said that an average citizen is 'worth £2000 to the State. At 5 per cent, this represents about £2 a week. In the diagram all grades are started as earning 3dol a week at 16 years of age, and that represents 150dol a year, which, at 5 per cent., represents a capital value of 3000dol. Unskilled labour rises to a little over lOdol a week at 22 years of age, representing a capital value of lO.OOOdol ; but this class of labour does not increase its value. Look, however, at the other groups. The shop-trained group rises to 16dol a week at 24 years, representing a capital value to the country of 15,000dol ; the trade school group to 25d0l at 32 years of age, representing a capital value of 25,000dol ; and the technical school group rises to 43d0l a week at 32 years, representing a. capital value to the country of each member of this group of 43,000d01, or over £8000. Follow these figures out on the diagram. I should have said that the diagram is copied from the Mosely Education Commission's report. But I want my young readers who are anxious to leave school and to commence earning to note this important fact : Just as we had to experiment for years and then wait still longer before we found out that the ladybird was of such great; value, so you as young folk must spend years at school, and even then must accept low wages to qualify for the more highly remunerative walks of life. It is true that .many who are uneducated rise, but if they have not the education their chances are fewer, their risks greater, and they feel the want of that refining influence and power that education gives. The Trades Union does not appear to specially interest itself in education. Why, I do not know, seeing that education ia the one thing no one. ran steal from a working manY child. In Eng'and the value of a ■well co-ordinated and free scheme is appreciated, judging by the following 1 extract from, I think, the Journal of Education: — At the concluding session of the Trades Union CongTess at Liverpool (September 8) the following resolution was discussed and carried by an overwhelming majority: — " This congress urges the organised workers to continue theiT efforts to secure parhamertaiy and municipal recognition of th» trades union education policy, which demands, as essential to the wellbeing of our fi.ture citizens: (1) The State maintenance of school children ; (2) scientific physical education, with medical inspection and records of the physical development of all children attending State schools, and skilled medical att-endaao© for any child requiring same; (3) the complete dissociation of reforms (1) and (2) from Poor Law administration; (4) a national system of education under lu'.l po-pular control, free and secular, irom the primary school to the university, (5) that secondary and technical education be an essential part of every child's education, and secured by such an extension of iJio scholarship system *a will place a maintenance scholarship within the reach of every child, and lhus make it possible for all children to hi full-time pupils up to the ago of 16; (6) that the beat intellectual and. technical training be provided for the t-eachers of the children, and that cuch educational district sh&'.l be required to tram the uumber of pupil teachers demanded by local needs, and for this purpose to establish training colleges, preferably in connection with universities or university colleges, the cost of education to be met by adequate grants from the National Exchequer; (7) tha, the co°t of education shall be met by g/ants from the Imperial Exchequer and b-: tht> restoration of misappropriated educations*, endowments ; and (8) that it be an iastructioi to the Parliamentary Committee of the Trades Union Congress to formula;* thes.,. proposals in a bill to be laid before Parliament during the forthcoming session."