WORK FOR THE BOYS

Southland Times, Issue 19124, 17 December 1923, Page 6

WORK FOR THE BOYS

PLACING THEM IN OCCUPATIONS. A SPLENDID IDEA. (Per United Press Association.) WELLINGTON, December 14. One of the objects of the Apprentices’ Act passed last session was to devise means for enabling boys to avoid “blind alley” occupations on leaving school. The Labour Department is now taking steps to this end and teachers of primary schools in sixteen districts are being, circularised by the Department calling on them in accordance with the statute to prepare reports on every boy who is leaving school at the end of the year to seek employment. A report- will be required regarding the educational standard of each boy and the particular subjects in which he has shown aptitude and any remarks the head teacher wishes to make regarding the suitability of the pupils for some occupations. The reports are to be prepared in triplicate, one being given to the boy’s parents, another furnished to the district officer of the Labour Department and the third retained by the head teacher. There is an invitation to the parents on his copy of the report to make application to the Labour Department for employment for his boy, indicating the kind of work preferred. The annual registration of factories is being pushed forward this year so as to secure the usual information being available in January, together with an indication from each factory owner as to the number of vacancies for various occupations under his control. It is hoped that this information may be usefully applied in placing boys in regard to whom reports have been submitted by their old teachers.

Officers of the Labour Department are placing before teachers a special article, pointing out what the new conditions of apprenticeship are and stressing the importance of skilled trades as compared with unskilled work