POST-SCHOOL PROBLEM

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 566, 19 January 1929, Page 13

POST-SCHOOL PROBLEM

FINDING WORK FOR THE BOYS

APPEAL TO EMPLOYERS

All employers are to be asked to

f U d * vacancy for at least one ex schoolboy 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 the 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 peoplleaving school. The problem is twofold. Owing to the recent depression, the supply of jobs for young people is exceeded by the number of youths leaving school, and there is the difficulty of ensuring that in every instance young people secure 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 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. CAUSES DEEP-SEATED

It was admitted that the first part of the problem resulted from causes which lay very deep, and that no ready means of solution existed. It was, however, agreed that an individual appeal bo made to employers, as far as possible, to make vacancies for at least one boy this summer, thus preventing the evil consequences of young people developing bad habits through idleness. It was thought that if such an appeal met with a satisfactory response, temporary machinery could be established to facilitate the placing of young people with the employers who had created vacancies. PERMANENT MACHINERY

The meeting was practically unanimous in agreeing that permanent machinery to facilitate the proper placing of young people leaving school should be set up and that this machinery should be under the control not of the Labour Department, but of 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 Ivlinisr ters of Education and Labour, to discuss 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, lanour unions, farming interests, the Public Service Association, the Public Service Commissioner’s Office, Chamber of Commerce, social service organisations such as Rotary, Y.M.C.A. and Y.W.C.A. Mr. John S. Fletcher, M.P., who was present, agreed to introduce the deputation.