OVER-EDUCATED?

Auckland Star, Volume LX, Issue 229, 27 September 1929, Page 8

OVER-EDUCATED?

YOUTHS IN NEW ZEALAND. BLIND ALLEY POSITIONS. WASTED EXPENDITURE. "We are over-educating our young people. I say that without fear or favour." So declared Mr. Albert Spencer, president of the Auckland Provincial Employers' Association, at yesterday's annual meeting of the association in supplementing his prepared address. "I don't believe in our young people of seventeen, eighteen and nineteen staying at school unless they have special studies to pursue or special ability to go higher. There are a few plums to be got, but all the boys cannot get them. "I know a good many of the most successful business men of this city left school when they were fourteen and fif-

teen years of age. They have made their way in the world, and they are highly educated. They are largely self-educated, and their education has been gained 011 the school of life. In America one sees thousands of well-educated men filling positions such as lorry drivers and bowser attendants —blind alley occupations—with no hope of advancing further. "We have to overhaul our education system in this country. We are spending huge sums of money on it, and I think we are largely wasting that money."