Hartley Neita, Contributor

This week, I heard a 14-year-old boy telling his mother that he wants to be an architect. After leaving college, he intends to go to the University of Technology to study for the profession.

The discussion reminded me of my earlier years when I was confused about what to do after leaving school. At a very early age, I was attracted to the priesthood, not because I was particularly religious, but because I thought a parson only worked on one day each week.It was in my final year and last week in college that I came face to face with the problem of life after school. Our form master spent a morning with us discussing the future, and then asked each of us what we intended to do when we went home from school for the last time. At that time Jamaica did not have a university.

Mico and Shortwood colleges did not grant degrees. Men and women became 'druggists' by working at the Kingston Public Hospital in the drugs department and then taking some sort of examination afterwards. Women had the choice of becoming nurses by working in our hospitals and being trained by senior sisters.

They never had the chance of becoming the matron of that institution as these were recruited from England. They could go to the teacher training colleges for three years and graduate as school teachers. They could also become post mistresses and telegraph clerks, shop assistants or typists in government departments. Young men could go to Mico College to be trained as teachers.

Floor-walkers

They could become floor-walkers in the major stores if they were tall and 'good-looking'. If they passed the required subjects in the Cambridge Examinations they could become civil servants - with no hope of ever becoming the head of a department. Those posts were reserved for Englishmen. They could also become ministers of religion, but in some denomina-tions they would never be accepted in some churches unless they were English, Welsh, Scot or American.

Radio Jamaica was just beginning to operate but their announcers were mainly Canadian and English. And hotels only employed Jamaicans as waiters, cooks (not chefs), bellboys and busboys. So when our Form Master began asking us of the careers we would pursue he started with boys whose surnames began with 'A', then 'B' and so on through the alphabet.

"Aarons," he began. "What will you be doing when you leave school?"

"I'll be joining my father's legal firm and be articled to become a solicitor."

"Atkinson, what will you be doing?"

"I'm going to work in my father's store on King Street."

"Harrison. Johnson. Morrison."

One was going to work on his father's plantation. Another was going to McGill University in Canada where his father went. And the other was going to work in his father's hotel in Montego Bay."

Then came the question to me. "Neita what will you be doing?"

I stuttered.