MAORI YOUTH

New Zealand Listener, Volume 14, Issue 362, 31 May 1946, Page 10

MAORI YOUTH

VOCATIONS FOR MAORI YOUTH. By H. C. McQueen. New Zealand Council for Educational Research, Wellington. 1945. Pp. 186. 10/-.

(Reviewed by

I. L.

G.

Sutherland)

N investigation into the problem of employment for Maori youth was suggested to the Council for Educational. Research by the New Zealand Vocational Guidance Association in 1941, several teachers in Maori schools having raised the matter and stressed its importance. The Council agreed to sponsor an inquiry and after some unavoidable delay H. C. McQueen; research officer of the Council, was appointed to undertake the work. The result is a valuable report on an urgent problem. The urgency of the problem is indicated by what Mr.. McQueen terms basic data. The Maori population, now more than 100,000, is increasing rapidly, at the rate, roughly, of 2,000 each year; and it is a predominantly youthful population. It has been estimated that for a good deal more than half of it there is no outlet on the lands now remaining to the Maori people. "Numbers of young Maoris, leaving school at fourteen or fifteen, have no prospect for work on the land," Mr. McQueen points out, "and become casual or seasonal workers, idle about their homes between intermittent jobs that lead to nothing permanent. In some districts perhaps half of the school-leavers have no prospects beyond these; in others the fraction may be smaller, but even in these places there are quite enough potentially useful young people likely to suffer for lack of steady work." Underlying Mr. McQueen’s report are two major assumptions, both of which he admits are arguable. The first is that Maoris are the equals of pakehas in their general ability and in their special abilities; that they are not inferior, that is, in actual inborn capacity. The second assumption is that Maoris ate capable of undertaking any kind of work that pakehas now do, the fact they are not doing it being due to a variety of circumstances into which inherent capacity does not enter, or enters only to a very slight degree. Mr. McQueen surveys the present position regarding the education of Maoris and advocates a greatly extended system of high school education, though he does not favour separate high schools for Maoris as such. Racial attitudes as affecting the employment of young Maoris are discussed and the opinion is stated that "the most direct attack on the problem of how to create harmonious relations between Meoris and pakehas is by way of the employment of Maoris in all kinds of | occupations in New Zealand." An analysis of the present position regarding Maori employment leads Mr. McQueen to the view that a shift from rural to town employment is inevitable for many young people and he advocates an immediate drive for the employment of Maori boys and girls wherever there is employment offering. To effect this he recommends-and this (Continued on next page)

(Continued from previous page) is the main proposal made in the report --the appointment of a number of special vocational guidance officers for Maoris. Such a scheme has in fact already been. started’ in Auckland and Mr. McQueen outlines an extension of it over the whole of New Zealand, indicating the differing nature of the work to be done in the various districts. Mr, McQueen’s report is characterised by a robust commonsense, a realistic approach to.the problem, and a firm faith in what education can effect. But it may be suggested that in some respects it over-simplifies the situation. In particular Mr. McQueen does not seem sufficiently to recognise the difficulties and problems of personality development created for young Maoris by their early environment and background, their difference in colour and their minority status, and how these factors affect their rapidly and successfully undertaking a wide variety of forms of work. He mentions all these matters, but appears to under-estimate their importance. Difficulties of this sort render his initial assumptions somewhat abstract. His recommendations, however, are obviously sound and one hopes that they may be put into effect, whatever the difficulties. In this country duty and selfinterest coincide in the task of promoting Maori welfare and in making an asset of the growing Maori population. "Vocations for Maori Youth" is, like all the publications of the Council for Educational Research, excellently produced and it contains a notable series of photographs by John Pascoe.