POST-SCHOOL PROBLEM

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 565, 18 January 1929, Page 13

POST-SCHOOL PROBLEM

FINDING WORK FOR THE BOYS APPEAL TO EMPLOYERS All employees are to be asked to find a vacancy for at least one exschoolboy this summer, and an effort is being made to put into effect permanent machinery for the placing of young people leaving school. A number of organisations in th city, including Rotary. Chamber of Commerce, Y.M.C.A., and educational, as well as the Labour Department and the Education Department, have been considering the question of finding suitable employment for young p op! leaving school. The problem is twofold. Owing to the recent depression, the supply of jobs for young people exceeds the number of youths leaving school, and there is the difficulty of ensuring that in every instance young people *£eure posts for which they are. best fitted, and that vacant jobs are filled by those who are best qualified to fill them. These questions were considered at a meeting held at the Chamber of Commerce this morning, and summoned at CAUSES DEEP-SEATED the request of the Labour Department, with a view to securing co-ordination, and preventing overlapping between the work of the various associations interested in the problem. It was admitetd that the first part of the problem resulted from causes which lav very deep, and that no readv means of solution existed. It was/ however, agreed that an individual appeal be made to employers, as far as possible, to make vacancies for at least one boy this summer. thus preventing the evil consequences ot voung people developing bad habits through idleness. It was thought that i£ such an appeal met with a satistactorv response, temporary rnachinerv could bo established to facilitate tli« placing of young people with the cmployers who had created vacancies. PERMANENT MACHINERY The meeting was practically unanimous in agreeing that permanent machinery to facilitate the piopei placing of young iieople leaving school should be set up and that this machinery should be under the control not ot the Labour Department. but ot the Education Department, which is more closely in touch with the actual qualifications and aptitudes of the individual young people leaving school. It was decided to take an early_ opportunity of approaching the I.trmsters of Education and Labous, to aiscuss the whole problem and recommend the setting up of such machinery, which it was thought might take the* form of a permanent committee representing such interests as the Labour and Education Departments, the head teachers of primary and secondary schools, employers, labour unions, farming interests, the Public Service Association, the Public Service Commissioner’s Office, Chamber ot Commerce, social service organisations such as Rotary. Y.M.O.A. and Y.W.C.A. Mr. John S. Fletcher, M.P., who was present, agreed to introduce the deputation.