Wairarapa Times-Age WEDNESDAY JUNE 3, 1942. EDUCATION AND WORK.

Wairarapa Times-Age, 3 June 1942, Page 2

Wairarapa Times-Age WEDNESDAY J UNE 3, 1942. EDUCATION AND WORK.

interesting suggestion with regard to the education of youth was made, at a gathering in Wellington recently, by a retiring Y.M.C.A. secretary, Mr J. L. White,. B.A. lhe suggestion was, in brief, that secondary school pupils, instead of spending their whole day, and usually part of the evening as well, purely in study, should follow a modified curriculum of study, from which in most cases the purely formal and academic subjects would be eliminated, and the other half of their day in part-time employment in profession, commerce or industry. . Mr White claimed that this scheme would provide for adolescent youths an outlet for the urge to work, to create, to assume responsibility, to be more directly useful members of society now, instead of struggling through a training for a place hr the economy of the remote future. He suggested also that the adoption of his proposals would provide a valuable transition period between school attendance and whole-time employment and that, during the present Avar years and the acute shortage of manpower, the scheme would provide in industry some thousands of junior, part-time workers, none the less valuable lor being young and enthusiastic, and would assist the family economy with a measure of- extra income. With the reservation that measures to relieve the shortage of manpower in war time ought to be considered separately and apart from any question, of improving Educational methods and practice, the suggestions advanced by Mr White have some claims to consideration, though it does not by any means follow that they should be approved as they stand. Determination of the “formal subjects” which Mr White thinks might advantageously be dropped obviously would be likely to give rise to contention. On the other hand it is a sad truth that secondary school education in this country at present often proves to be poor preparation for working life, and therefore for life at the broadest view, and that the abrupt change over from school to working life which is the common lot is apt to be a painful and disheartening experience and at times is disastrous. It may be suggested that if this state of affairs is to be improved upon there must be an all-round broadening of both educational and working opportunity and certainly that there must be no closing of educational doors in the faces of eager students. That being said, the idea of allowing post-primary pupils, at all events in their senior years, to divide their time between school attendance and economic employment has a good deal to commend it. Change on these lines seems to be worth considering purely from the standpoint of the educational and social advantages it offers and irrespective entirely of the special conditions brought about at present by the war. A division of the day into periods of school attendance and economic employment would be most unlikely, however, to work out satisfactorily. Other considerations apart, an undue, unsettling and disturbing strain would be imposed in these conditions on a large proportion of the young folk concerned. Much better results might be expected from a division, hot of the day, but of the year into periods of school attendance and economic employment, with of course an adequate allowance of holiday leave. There is no obvious reason why this plan should not be extended from the secondary school to the university and to preparation for the learned and other professions. No good brain need be wasted if its owner were given a fair opportunity of working his or her way through the higher branches of the post-primary schools and the university. At the same time, many young people of modest ability would find in a division of the year between school and economic employment better guidance and a keener incentive to useful study of some kind, than they find at present. Admittedly it is an essential part of a solution of the total problem that better and broader working opportunities should be offered to the members of our oncoming generation than they have been offered in the recent past. That in itself is a. highly important question which will demand very serious consideration indeed in the immediate future.