LEAVING SCHOOL.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 17220, 11 December 1923, Page 6

LEAVING SCHOOL.

PLACING BOYS IN POSITIONS (Special to the “Star. ) WELLINGTON, December 11. At the end of the year, hundreds of New Zealand boj-s will leave school to earn their own living, and they are providing their parents and teachers with a problem which the Labour Department is taking up with a view to rendering practical assistance. The greatest danger to avoid is/ that of placing a boy in the wrong occupation, I>afticularlv if it is to lead nowhere. Guidance is needed at this point, and it will be officially given in sixteen important districts in the Dominion, in accordance with a scheme, inaugurated by the Labour Department under powers conferred by the Apprenticeship Act of last session.

The teachers of primary schools in sixteen districts are being circularised by the Labour 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, any particular subjects in which he has shown aptitude, and any remarks the head teacher wishes to make regarding the suitability of the pupil for some occupation. These reports are to b© prepared in triplicate, one being given to the boy’s parents, another furnished to the district officer of the Labour Department, and the third being retained by the head teacher. There is an invitation to the parent on his copy of the report, to make application to the Labour Department for employment for his boy. fndicating the kind preferred. The annual registration of factories is being pushed forward this year so as to secure tlie usual information 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.

Another feature of the scheme is the circulation among teachers of a special article? written by officers of the Labour Department with the object of directing boys away from “ blind alley ” occupations. This will deal with the new conditions of apprenticeship, the needs of various industries in regard to labour supply, the importance cf skilled manual occupations compared with unskilled, and the fact that unemployment is rarely- experienced in the skilled trades, many classes of skilled workers having been employed at high pressure actually during the prevalence of the recent unemployment trouble in the Dominion,