S.T.E.P.S. scheme questioned

Press, 6 July 1983, Page 1

S.T.E.P.S. scheme questioned

PA Auckland The Minister of Education, Mr Wellington, is privately questioning the value of the $l4 million School Leavers Training and Employment Preparation Scheme (S.T.E.P.S.) administered by the Labour Department.

Reporters were excluded from a discussion that the Minister had with 220 secondary school principals in Auckland yesterday when he expressed views on the S.T.E.P.S. programme, the University Entrance examination, and other issues.

Some principals said afterwards that the reason for the private session was that the Minister did not want to embarrass his Cabinet colleague, the Minister of Labour, Mr Bolger. Principals, who are holding their national conference, are now convinced that the S.T.E.P.S, concept, launched last year, will be allowed to sink into oblivion before the end of this year. Publicly, Mr Wellington said after the session that it was too early to tell how the Labour Department school-leavers scheme would work in tandem with the school-to-work' transition programmes financed by the Education Department.

Since the Labour Department scheme had been launched last year only one

S.T.E.P.S. programme had been established.

However, when he publicly addressed the conference earlier, Mr Wellington praised the success of the school-to-work transition schemes which had catered for 6200 students last year.

Almost 4000 of these students were now placed in permanent work.

Principals have said that they believe the Labour Department programme is a waste of resources, placed in the wrong hands, and simply threatens the success of the transition schemes run by schools. The S.T.E.P.S. programme is designed to pay unemployed 15-year-olds $l5 a week, and 16-year-olds $63 a week, to learn skills offered by organisations under schemes approved by the Labour Department. Many principals are concerned that pupils will be tempted to leave school programmes for the short-term monetary gain from a scheme that cannot guarantee them a job.

During a later public session of the conference some teachers suggested that Mr Wellington should be asked to express his own concern about S.T.E.P.S. publicly and to the Minister of Labour.

Further conference report, page 2