Wairarapa Times-Age THURSDAY, MAY 6, 1943. EDUCATION & EMPLOYMENT.

Wairarapa Times-Age, 6 May 1943, Page 2

Wairarapa Times-Age THURSDAY, MAY 6, 1943. EDUCATION & EMPLOYMENT.

The manager of a large soft goods factory in Wellington is reported to have stated that it had long been legal to employ girls between 13 and 14 years of age in such factories and to have produced certificates dated between 1939 and 1942 for the employment of girls between 13 and 14, each certificate being endorsed “not to be employed on machine work until 14 years of age.” The factory manager produced evidence also of girls of 14 having earned from 32s 6d up to £2 a week. It may be hoped that the overwhelming weight of opinion in this country will be that the employment of young children in factories or elsewhere should be restricted as narrowly as possible. The principal restrictions operating at present are those relating to the school leaving age and to factory employment.- The present school leaving age is 14 years, but this is subject to the proviso that a child may leave at an earlier age if he or she holds a proficiency certificate. The Factories Act provides that no boy or girl under the age of 16 shall be employed in any factory unless the employer holds a certificate from the Inspector of Factories of the fitness of the boy or girl concerned. It surely can hardly have been contemplated that certificates of this kind should be issued in respect of girls only 13 years old.

The circumstances in which the operation of the Factories Act has permitted such a practice most certainly should be brought under investigation. It .has been said that, taking account of working hours and of comfortable and healthy conditions, employment in factories may be by no means the least desirable form of wage-earning for children. This may be true, but it does less to justify any lowering of the age for factory employment than to suggest the need for an investigation of the total field of juvenile employment.

Various questions arise in the consideration of this question, among them that of the economic burden imposed on parents,’but it should be possible for New Zealanders to determine at this time of day that the development of the members of the rising l generation shall nowhere be stunted cithei by unduly early employment in factories or elsewhere, or by a denial of educational opportunities.

It is assuredly not a matter for pride that some at least of the children in our primary schools who give proofs of exceptional ability are rewarded by being allowed to leave school and go to work a year, or even two years, before those of their comrades who make only normal progress. A more effective method could hardly be devised of throwing some of our best brains off the educational ladder at its lower end.

The mere raising of the school leaving age may not, however, be the best or the only means of assisting gifted children whose parents are poor, or indeed children generally, to obtain the best possible education. Paying regard not only to: the interests of the children, which should be paramount, but to the economic and other factors involved, it might be preferable to allow young people from, say, the age of. Id years,Onwaid, to divide the year into periods of attendance at school and of employment in approved conditions. It is certainly desirable that opportunities for continued study and training should be made available to all prepared to make good use of them and it is hardly in doubt that they could be made available in the conditions here suggested.