Guidance for Girls In Choosing Careers

Manawatu Times, Volume 69, Issue 57, 10 March 1944, Page 6

Guidance for Girls In Choosing Careers

In an informative address to parents on Wednesday evening Aiiss C. 3*3. Robinson, M-A., Vocational Guidance Officer to girls in Christchurch, stressed the necessity in these days of changes in curriculum for educational guidance and career advisers. The function took place in the Assembly Hall al. the Palmerston North Girls’ High School, Aiiss E. E. Stephens, principal, presiding and introducing the speaker. A welcome was also extended to ALirs G. D. Aliles, successor to Airs. Barron as Vocational Guidance Officer in charge of the Wellington district. Aiiss Robinson said she would like parents to feel the AVellington Centre was their headquarters. Khe explained why the vocational centres had come into being, and said the movement was not really new for she herself had been working on it for ten years, but it was being greatly extended. The need for education in vocational guidance had been recognised during the depression and had grown quickly in those years. The project was not bound up with unemployment, neither was it political, the ‘ speaker contended, but it was a pernian--1 cut part of the educational system of any country. It was the job of the vocational officer to gather great supplies of accurate information going to the fountain head. It was hard for pupils to know why they had to take the school certificate course, what subjects to take or what to go for. Courses at secondary schools were more varied now and with the dropping of matriculation girls were being drafted to courses which suited them best in which they would be happiest and find their niche in the world of occupation. The choice of jobs had certainly increased but changes in the world of occupation had made selection more difficult. Specialisation was possible and necessary. Continuing, Aiiss Robinson said conditions were changing all the time, instancing the increasing use of machinery. Before sending girls to jobs conditions were investigated and meetly ings arranged between employers and the girls. In schools the size of the Palmerston North Girls’ High School, the principal would be career adviser and a record kept through the years. On the eve i of leaving school a girls career would be . discussed and she would be sent to the officer at the centre who would keep in i touch for a year at least after she entered upon her occupation, it seldom happened that they placed girls in jobs in which they were not happy, Aiiss Robinson said. A file of employers was also kept to check up on conditions. Occupations were never so varied nor so interesting although the needs of the community in the matter of essential indurI try made complications at present—there were more jobs than girls, the speaker said, and the number of trades to which girls could be apprenticed (only verbally) was increasing. There were opportunities for those with an artistic bent; . in fact, no girl need have any fear about a job. Nursing and teaching were the best occupations lor girls, Aiiss Robinson considered, and after two years there was the chance of being chosen to specialise. Selection was made on the . basis of teaching and organising ability, and personality. Games mistresses were now graded, and there were the worlds of music, or speecn-training which required infinite patience but was well worth while. There were endless opportunities for specialising in nursing. The speaker stressed the need lor girls considering careers getting the fullest information possible, and in careful selection of a course mental temperamental and physical factors must be taken into account. Fifteen was too early to leave school and parents must take a lung view of education and occupation. Education for home-making eouid not be too wide as bringing up children and running a home was the hardest job of all. Finally Aiiss Robinson counselled parents to use the minimum of distinction in choosing occupations for their daughters, concluding with the hope that a Vocational Guidance Centre might be set up in Palmerston North. Aiiss Stephens thanked Aiiss Robinson, also Form ill girls who contributed vocal offerings under the leadership of A liss Mona Dean. Air. T. P. Hart, chairman of the Barents’ Association, pul forward a plea for new parents to join up, and supper served by the prefects concluded j the evening.