SCHOOL-AGE OF GIRLS.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXV, Issue 10713, 7 June 1913, Page 4

SCHOOL-AGE OF GIRLS.

Parents td, keep their girls at school np' to 16 years of age. This •advice is given in a pamphlet dealing with the courses of study for high schools and higher elementary schools issued by the Victorian Education Department. Dealing with the course of study for girls attending /district high schools, it is set forth that the qualifications required for admission are.—"That each pupil must be under 13 years of age, and must either have passed the examination for the certificate of merit or have two years in a high school or a higher ele'meniary school." The Department holds that "vocational training for ■ girls*is' needed just as:mtich' as it is ■ for boys," and in explaining the opportunities,offered for girls under this higher, system of it puts the matter in this way:—"Under present social conditions many girls—particularly those Uvirig in cities—miust serve a part..of their lives as wageearners, but the major portion of theiE, lives will be spent a s home-makers. If they enter on the former occupa-. tions with.no preparations and with a slender foundation of, elementary .school training, they are destined to low wages; and, if in the latter case, they enter on home-making (which, after all, is the chief vocation for women), and all that: it implies, with no" preparation, the results of their imperfect training are often disastrous in Health and home. As. far as possible, by directing the work of'actual conditions as they exist in the neigh-, bourhood of the school, the pupil will be brought into direcjt contact with thp-realities of life;"