Wairarapa Times-Age WEDNESDAY, MAY 26, 1943. SCHOOL LEAVING AGE.

Wairarapa Times-Age, 26 May 1943, Page 2

Wairarapa Times-Age WEDNESDAY, MAY 26, 1943. SCHOOL LEAVING AGE.

IT may be hoped that nearly all New Zealanders will approve and be prepared actively to champion the view taken by most of the members of the Wellington Technical College Board of Governors, at their meeting on Monday evening, that the proposal of the Government to raise the school leaving age to 15 years is to be welcomed. It should be agreed as readily that action to that end should be made fully effective by revising the exemption clause in the Education Act and the labour regulations under which children are allowed to leave school before attaining the prescribed age.

One member of the Wellington board expressed the opinion that there had been a lot of loose talk about raising the school leaving age and about the employment in industry of children under that age.

It was not the age of leaving school that mattered (he said as he is’ reported), but the standard of education attained. They should encourage these children to attend technical classes at night, instead of making it necessary to stay at school to a certain age. He considered that the manpower authorities would be faced with problems if this supply of labour were cut off.

The idea that the industrial and economic welfare of any country is dependent on the employment of child labour belongs to the dark ages and should nowhere be dismissed more decisively than in New Zealand.

Superficially there may appear to be something in the contention that it is not the age of leaving school that matters, but the standard of education attained. What happens at present, however, is that it is the brighter children —precisely those who would benefit .most by further education —who are able to gain permission to leave school and go to work before the normal leaving age. This is a thoroughly bad and wasteful policy and the harm it does would assuredly not be lessened if exemptions were granted as freely as they apparently are now with the leaving age raised to 15 years and later io 16 years. It has been argued at times that in some branches of industry, particularly in certain trades, a boy is much more likely to develop the skill and aptitudes of a craftsman if he begins his workshop training at the age of 14 than if he does so at a later age. Quite possibly there may be a good deal in this contention—experience certainly has shown, that boys at an early age are capable of attaining notable skill in the use of tools — but in that case the position surely may be met satisfactorily by combining attendance at school with workshop training.

11l technical schools young people of both sexes are now given extended opportunities of developing the skill of hand and eye needed by the craftsman or other skilled worker. If necessary, it should be perfectly practicable to reconcile actual industrial training with attendance at school during a considerable part of the year. Definite limits ought to be imposed on the amount of night school attendance demanded of children of tender years.

With regard to the general extension of education in this country and to the degree to which, amongst other things, it should be a preparation for working life, much remains open to consideration. Even at the stage now reached, however, there should be no question of extending any tolerance to the idea of regarding children in their teens as a labour force, to be utilised as effectively as possible. The ruling aim must be to give these children every possible assistance in the development worthily and to the best advantage of their latent powers. Besides being the plain duty of a reasonably enlightened community, this is at the same time the policy under which the community eventually will derive the richest possible return on its national investment in education.