The Open Door

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 536, 13 December 1928, Page 8

The Open Door

Boys Seek Business Careers

THE school year is nearly ended. Soon the class-rooms will be hollow and dead—recalled to life only by the monotonous swish of the caretaker’s broom. Already, while the young folk are preparing for the hot sunshine and the mid-summer round of pleasure, many mothers and fathers are wondering how they will start off their boys in the struggle with life which is about to begin. The new Government, too, has promised as its first duty a consideration of the boy-employment problem.

Many young Aucklanders Will have made up their minds upon their future business pursuits. The golden dreams of childhood still whirl through their brains at this, the school-leaving age; all that now remains for them to do is knock at the door and opportunity will open for them the pathway to success. In reality the shaping of their careers is not so easily accomplished. A youth possessing the chief ingredients of success —character, determination hnd general ability—might be given a long post-primary course of

3: SK lit Si; VA Hi IK SS if; % education as the ground-work for his future job, though it is a mistake to assume that trade and industry offer less scope to the brilliant boy than do the learned professions. If the school course is too long, the boy becomes too old to be apprenticed to a trade, in which the age of entry is 16 years or less. For commercial, banking and municipal positions the boy must be 15 and not over 18 years of age. Educational authorities say that boys who complete a four-years’ course of post-primary education may look forward to entering a profession or the more professional occupations in commerce and industry. Where there is general ability without . pronounced leanings, a general course to the matriculation or higher-leaving certificate is recommended as a prelude to the choice of a career. Those who intend to follow rural pursuits are now catered for in a comprehensive way by courses of practical farming and agricultural science at technical schools, district high schools, and at the Lincoln College and the Massey Agricultural College. This training may lead the boy to profes-

sional or non-professional official positions in the Department of Agriculture or to business on liis own account in mixed farming, dairying, orcharding, bee-keeping, shearing, poultry raising, and innumerable other lines. Officers in the department are highly paid when the top rung of the ladder is reached, and to-day, more than ever, there is a call for scientists in the primary industrial sphere. About 26 per cent, of male bread-winners in New Zealand are engaged in agricultural and pastoral work; less than half of them are wage-earners, the majority being on their own account or employers of labour. COMMERCE AND PUBLIC SERVICE Youths qualifying for matriculation or the Public Service Entrance examinations may rise steadily to a salary of £295 in the Post and Telegraph Department. Higher positions are rewarded according to jnerit. In the Railway Department a choice of cadets is made from the Public Service Commissioner’s list. There are 4,000 applicants on the register at present. Appointments to commercial occupations in warehouses. Customs agents, auctioneers and financial agents, are made usually from lads of about 16 years of age with good educational qualifications, and displaying common sense and initiative. Boys commence at about 15s to £1 10s a week, and rise in increments to about £2OO a year, thereafter receiving according to merit £3OO for clerks, £4OO and £SOO for seniors, and up to £ 1,000 for managers. For work in shops the qualifications are general smartness, honesty, civility and cleanliness, as well as special business aptitude. Under 15 years, boys start at 12s 6d, and rise mainly according to ability and initiative. Head salesmen may get from £4 15s to £6 weekly, and a manager from £7 to £l2 a week. “ALL IS NOT GOLD’’ lit the professions the range of emoluments is high, but the conditions are more exacting, and usually require from six to ten years’ of study in specific subjects to qualify by examination. For instance, a medical man has to go through the secondary school and then study for an additional six years at a medical school. The law—a much overcrowded profession in New Zealand; dentistry, journalism, civil and electrical engineering, insurance, banking and teaching, all offer a popular line of occupation for the ambitious young New Zealander. Care must be taken at the outset to ascertain the possibilities of permanency in industrial occupations. Many jobs lead simply to blind alleys, and the boys who are engaged in them find themselves without useful training when it is too late to start their careers over again as apprentices. They then become casual workers. The assurance is given by the Department of Education that there are in every flourishing industry important and lucrative positions to be reached by capable and energetic boys and girls, always provided they are not too greatly handicapped by entering the industry by the wrong door.