OUTLOOK FOR BOYS

Hokitika Guardian, 3 November 1931, Page 3

OUTLOOK FOR BOYS

PROBLEM IN AUSTRALIA

THOUSANDS SOON TO LEAVE SCHOOL.

SYDNEY, October '22

One of Australia’s biggest problems —and no doubt New Zealand’s also—is that of its army of boys who have either left school, or are shortly leaving school, with little or no hope of finding jobs. 11l another month or two, in Sydney thousands more boys—probably 10,000 at a conservative estimate—will be leaving the school gates behind them fdr the last time, along with hundreds if not thousands, who have put in an extra year at school simply because they could not find anything to do at the beginning of the year. Parents have taken the attitude 'that it is better to leave their boys ait school •than to see them loafing about - the streets and getting into mischief. Occasionally, in the wanted columns of the daily pevvspapers, a messenger boy is required. Beyond that, there is little or nothing. .Some time ago, Canon R.. B. S. Hammond and Dr Richard Arthur, M.L.A., tried to raise a few hundred pounds for a scheme to place about 30 boys on an area of good, and cheap land, -not far from Sydney/ but -they were unsuccessful. The problem of the boy is now so acute that some of the suburban councils', especially those in industrial areas, are giving it special consideration. The problem of children about to leave school has become so acute that the appointment of an economic adjustments committee to deal with the position has . been'- proposed. This, body, it is suggested, should be representative of various interested organisations, and of industries generally, le normal years, the number of children who leave school each year in NewSouth Wales i,s 25,000, The school population increases each year by 10,000; but this year, in consequence of the abnormal times, it has increased by 16,000. '1 he question has been advanced, of raising the school age to 15 years, dll order to keep children of 14 off the .labour market, and thus ' perhaps aid their elder brothers and sisters in obtaining jobs; but to raise the school age would cost about £500,000 a year, or more at a period when no loan moneys are avai/able, and when the education estimates are being ruthlessly cut. It is a huge problem, and, from the standpoint of parents, an appalling one.