E.—2.

3. REPORT OF THE SUPERINTENDENT OF TECHNICAL EDUCATION. Sib, — I have the honour to present my report for the year 1932. General. The year 1932 marks a reduction in the rate of growth of the technical schools of the Dominion, due probably entirely to the economic and industrial depression. There was a distinct fall in the enrolments at evening classes, and this was by no means balanced by the increase in day numbers. A decline in both day and evening enrolments was experienced in the industrial courses in some schools. In the building trades courses especially the numbers showed a remarkable shrinkage, due no doubt to the stagnant state of the building trades in the Dominion, and the large reduction in the numbers of apprentices, there being few openings for new apprentices. Besides this check in the normal growth of the schools, in itself a serious handicap to institutions which have been growing in size at approximately the rate of 6 per cent, per annum, the schools have been further severely restricted by the reduction in grants for equipment and incidental expenses, and the curtailment of grants for buildings, the general lack of contributions from local bodies, and the difficulty of raising funds for social and recreative purposes either by subscriptions from pupils or by means of entertainments, sales of work, and the like. The Technical School Boards and their staffs have, however, loyally responded to the call for selfdenial and economy, and have made every effort to maintain the efficiency of the teaching in spite of the lack of material resources. The staffs in particular have spared no pains, and have in many cases given their services freely in their own time in order to further the efforts of local organizations to provide suitable training and healthful occupation for boys and girls unable to secure employment. The problem of juvenile unemployment, especially of boys and girls over sixteen years of age, of reasonably good education, has become so acute that its national importance has been recognized by the Government, and a special investigation undertaken by two members of Parliament. It is gratifying to note that these investigators report that " abundant evidence has been produced which shows that technical training in New Zealand is of a very high order." The present depression and the consequent increase of juvenile unemployment, especially the serious shrinkage in the numbers of apprentices in all trades, a decrease of 30 per cent, in three years, have brought into sudden prominence radical changes in the nature of the problem of the education of boys and girls for industrial and commercial work, which have been quietly taking place for more than fifty years, not certainly unnoticed, but not generally recognized hitherto as requiring urgent consideration. The tendency of old institutions to persist after they have ceased to function effectively is well illustrated in the apprenticeship system, which has been for many years weakened by the general mechanization of industry, and undermined by the development of compulsory school education and the gradual raising of the compulsory school age. Both these agencies may be expected to continue their work, so that the time must come when apprenticeship as at present understood will disappear altogether in nearly all, if not in all, industries. The effect, even now quite considerable, will be to transfer the training of the young person from the employer to the State or privately supported school. In the past such a transfer was impossible, since no school could provide the type of training which, through a long apprenticeship from tender infancy to adult manhood, in all the branches of a comprehensive trade, produced the craftsmen of the old guilds. Mechanized industries do not require such craftsmen, but need rather a general adaptability and handiness which it is quite possible to develop satisfactorily in the school. In commercial, agricultural, and domestic pursuits a similar tendency towards simplification of operations and reliance on machines and science involves similar modifications of the training of the young worker. With the rapid development of new industries and the revolutionizing or decay of old ones, occupations continually change, disappear, and are created, so that the worker must be prepared at any time to learn a new job or join the ranks of the unemployed. Thus adaptability and general usefulness of hand and brain are fast becoming the most marketable assets of the wage-earner. Ordinary apprenticeship is not specially designed to develop these qualities, particularly in trades subdivided into highly specialized sections, while the machine-tender is very unlikely to acquire them in the performance of his ordinary duties. On the other hand, the schools, which cannot hope to give specialize'd training for the great majority of occupations, may readily be organized to give a general training of hand and brain that will enable youth to adapt itself easily to the needs of highly specialized jobs. The general mechanization of industry by thus making it possible and necessary for youth to receive most of its training in the school has opened the way . for education in the widest sense to become not the by-product of infant labour or apprenticeship to a trade, but the whole business of the years of childhood and adolescence. The increasing hours of leisure, and the growth of the democratic spirit in civic, national, and international affairs, require that the young should have careful preparation not only for earning a living, but also for properly discharging their civic and social duties, and for the responsibility of making the best use of their leisure time,

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