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Salient: Victoria University Students' Paper. Vol. 29, No. 8. 1966.

Vocational guidance deserves discussion

Vocational guidance deserves discussion

It Is A Pity that the "Report of the Commission of Inquiry into Vocational Training in New Zealand" has not been more widely discussed, Much of what is said is the wisdom which has not yet been quite accepted by the establishment—that "schoolleaving age should be raised to 16 as soon as possible." that the first three years of secondary education should be aimed at giving a good general education, that students should be able to read before they leave school (arising from a common complaint of employers-while the central theme (that expenditure on vocational training is an investment) seems to have hardly penetrated to large sections of the community.

In general the commission is satisfied with the present non-professional training (apprenticeship etc.) and suggests modifications rather than major alteration. The only important radical recommendation is the Institution of a vocational training council with an overall object of co-ordinating technical education and relating it to the country's economic development.

Regrettably however, the commission's instructions were to consider only nonprofessional training, thus perpetuating the mythical gulf which is thought to separate the professions from others and which suggests university education should be qualitatively different from that of technical education at the same.

The other failure of the report is the conclusion upon adult retraining. Less than a page is devoted to this topic and the recommendation is weakly summarised as "if the occasion arises trade training schools should be set up." As far back as 1958 the Swedes discovered that such a need did arise and now each year about 1 per cent of the work force are retrained in courses averaging 6 months, and in some cases lasting 2 years.

Of particular interest to students are the commission's comments on hostels:—

"We are told that other hostels (university, teachers' colleges) have priority over apprentice and technician trainee needs We urge most strongly the order of priority be reviewed so that the group of apprentices etc.) should be given equal priority …"

It is true that the income of a 15-year-old apprentice is about that of a first year university student, and since either boarder is in his first year away from home the argument must be accepted as valid.

Fortunately it would seem that the present demand of the "non-professional" students for such hostels is considerably smaller than the university demand and even more fortunately I note that the next speech opening of Parliament offers further assistance for hostels for both groups.

Report Of The Commission Of Inquiry Into Vocational Training In New Zealand, Government Printer, October 1965. Reviewed by Brian Easton.