INSTRUCTION FOR THE - YOUNG UNEMPLOYED O N June 28th last the
Unemployment Act (1934) became law, and the Minister of Labour was given power to require all unemployed boys and girls under the age of eighteen to attend courses of instruction. In the four months that have elapsed since then it has been the duty of the local education authorities to expand the services of the Junior Instruction Centres to meet the new demands of the Ministry of Labour. A colossal task has been undertaken. Its accomplish- ment is of incalculable importance for the generation of young people who are now attempting to enter industry—the working classes of the future. Up to now the case has generally been stated to us in abstract terms ; measures have been shown to be necessary for solving the statistical problem of juvenile unemploy- ment, and they include State grants, action by Public Assistance Board officials and local education officers, the preparation of buildings and curricula and the appointment of instructors. But when we come down to the actual work these generalizations have to be translated into human experience. Who, and of what varying types, are the boys and girls who are to be rescued from idleness ? What sort of teaching or teachers are needed for them ? How will it make them more suited for employment ? And what will happen to the young persons over eighteen who have passed the age of attendance at Junior Instruction Centres and are still unsuccessfully seeking work ?
These are among the questions which Mr. Valentine Bell has asked and attempted to answer in an admirable report which he has prepared on " Junior Instruction Centres and their Future " for the Carnegie United Kingdom Trust. He traces the genesis of the movement to the Juvenile Unemployment Centres set up after the Armistice in 1918 for unemployed boys and girls, and describes the successive schemes which have been adopted since then and have provided invaluable experience for our guidance today. Hitherto limited in their scope, these experimental schemes of the past have proved to be a means of saving juveniles from the worst effects of continued unemployment. Their utility on a larger scale today is beyond question. The Govern- ment was on the right lines when it decided to make theni available for all the juvenile unemployed, whose numbers will not decline in the near future in proportion to the general decline in unemployment, on account of the abnormally large number of children who will be leaving school between 1934 and 1940.
Yet it must not be supposed that the extension of the use of these Instruction Centres is a substitute for raising the school age. Mr. Bell is emphatic on that point. In the main, Juvenile Instruction Centres have been used by children between 16' and 18 ; • and that should continue to be the case. A certain proportion of children over fourteen have stopped on at their day schools. For others it has been comparatively easy to find jobs —blind-alley jobs—owing to the demand for the services of children who are apt to be dismissed when they are sixteen. The position has been acute for the boys and girls between 16 and 18, some of whom have been in and out of jobs, and lightheartedly adjust themselves to the novelty of the Instruction Centre, whilst others, who for a couple of years have been regularly employed, become embittered by the sudden reversal of fortune, and often prove recalcitrant students.
If the right treatment of these children has been difficult in the past it will be even more so now, when they will be far more numerous and drawn from the widest possible variety of classes. The first difficulty is that of finding suitable buildings and equipment, and this is all the greater since in some cases the need for extensive accommodation is likely to be temporary. Still more serious is the problem of finding tactful and experienced instructors capable of arousing the interest and attention of this strangely assorted and constantly changing company of boys and girls, who have one eye on the task before them and another on the paramount business of finding a job. The Centres must keep contact with the Unemployment Exchanges, and help to recom- mend the right children for jobs, and yet endeavour to sustain interest in the instructional work. If the latter is to have its full effect it should be associated with games and voluntary activities which at each Centre will stimulate corporate feeling.
The task of the moment is to ensure that a scheme which has proved so successful on a small scale should be equally successful on a far greater scale. Money must not be handed out in too niggardly a way, for the Centres must be equipped. Steps must be taken to attract the services of a sufficient number of fully com- petent instructors. Voluntary help from outside can contribute much in the organization of games and social activities. In every district support will be wanted from those who have time and talent to offer. Here at last is an organized scheme on a national scale pro- viding for all juveniles a means of avoiding that mental and moral deterioration which has been the worst consequence Of unemployment. The increase of delinquency among the young has been the most distressing feature of the Criminal statistics of recent years. But Mr. Bell is able to assure us that every Superintendent of Juvenile Instruction Centres whom he has interviewed was emphatic in stating that the amount of delinquency was less because of the existence of the Centres. Next to the raising of the school age, which would attack the disease at the source, and surely cannot much longer be postponed, the development of Instruction Centres is the next best available method of attacking the evil.
But there remains one serious gap in the remedial process which demands attention. Those who have joined a Junior Instruction Centre before the age of 18 must leave as soon as they reach that age. After that, says Mr. Bell, there is little to attract them beyond the streets, the billiard hall and the cinema. The Education Officer of Wigan is quoted as emphasizing the plight of young adults in areas where industries have died and left a large number of specialized work-people without any livelihood ; and he insists on the need for the pro- vision of " practical, cultural and recreational activities and some place in which they can be left to do what they like without interference." The difficulty of finding employment is actually more acute, as Lord Elgin points out, between 18 and 22 than in the earlier years. Up to the age. of 18 the provision of Instruction Centres will go a long way to stopping the rot caused by idleness. But the problem does not end there. For adults it can scarcely be solved by simply extending the age up to which young people may remain at the Juvenile Centres. This •aspect of the matter needs separate consideration, and though something, no doubt, can be done by volun- tary effort, no scheme will be satisfactory in which the Government does not participate. The experience which is being gained in dealing with the Juvenile Centres is at the disposal of the Ministry of. Labour and the Board of Education and should guide them to devise an extension of the scheme for the benefit of young adults.
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