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people to continue in forms of education which better prepared them for the changed social and economic conditions which they were to confront. Many had no adequate vocational training and many others were rapidly losing their employability through disuse of their vocational skill and information. The lack of comprehension of the causes of the depression was a strong factor in their loss of morale. The Office of Education, therefore, took the initiative in calling together, in April 1934, representatives of the various Government agencies which were conducting programs for or gathering information concerning youth. These included the Extension Division of the Department of Agriculture, the Forestry Service, the N. R. A., the F. E. R. A., the Census Bureau, the Children's Bureau, and the Employment Service of the Department of Labor. These representatives agreed unanimously upon two matters: First, that the problem was sufficiently acute to warrant governmental interest; second, that the Office of Education might properly assume the initiative in seeking solutions insofar as those solutions came within the sphere of the Federal Government.

Therefore, in addition to the activities of the Committee on Youth Problems the Office has advocated two programs in the interest of unemployed out-of-school youth. These may be characterized as the long-time program and the emergency program.

(a) The long-time program.-It is recognized that the problem of unemployment among youth is not likely to disappear with the disappearance of the acute phases of the depression. Therefore, some fundamental changes are likely to be required in the opportunities for guidance, education, and recreation available to young people. Therefore, the Office of Education decided to seek support for the creation within the Office of a permanent Division of Youth. In this effort they have been assisted by many youth groups but notably by the National Student Federation.

The service contemplated by the Division of Youth falls into two categories:

First, an office and field staff in guidance, in recreation, and in education, to assemble information concerning activities for out-ofschool youth and to assist communities in setting up the best programs to meet the needs of young people.

Second, the organization in a few representative communities of experimental programs to test out various types of activities. These, of course, would be financed largely by the communities served but would be under the general supervision of the Office of Education. Budget support for the Division of Youth was not secured for the fiscal year, 1935-36. Pending the decisions as to how to meet the emergency situation confronted by youth it was impossible to secure

favorable action on the request for financial support for the permanent set-up.

(b) Emergency program.-During the fall of 1934 efforts were made to secure approval of more comprehensive F. E. R. A. projects designed to serve the needs of unemployed youth. The Federal student-aid program was making it possible for approximately 100,000 young people to attend college. C. C. C. camps were caring for approximately 250,000 young men. The apprenticeship committee, under the Secretary of Labor, was making headway with its program of apprenticeship, but its plans were designed to assist only a few thousand young people. Emergency junior colleges, under the F. E. R. A., were being opened in many States. The adulteducation program, under the F. E. R. A., was enrolling many young people in adult-education classes. In spite of all these efforts, however, the problem was not being met adequately. Therefore, the Office of Education sought to devise a fairly comprehensive program which might be supported from the large work-relief appropriation which was assuredly to be made during the winter months by the Congress.

After much deliberation a proposal was drafted and submitted for criticism on February 11, 1935, to a small group of national leaders in the various aspects of youth activities. After a full day's conference the proposal was endorsed in all of its essentials and became the program actively advocated by the Office of Education. The Commissioner of Education conferred with many Government representatives concerning the proposal, and finally, on April 26, released to the press its outlines in order to obtain the reactions and criticisms of interested persons throughout the country. The proposed program was discussed in radio addresses and on the platform. The response appeared to be not only generous but enthusiastically favorable to the type of program advocated.

The essentials of the proposal were:

1. Number reached. To provide for 2,000,000 young men and women while living at home; about 10 percent of those 16 to 25 years of age.

2. How administered.-To be administered by the educational system-Federal, State, and local-just as other educational programs

now are.

3. With what cooperation.-To be planned and carried out with the cooperation of those agencies and individuals most vitally concerned in National, State, and local community.

4. Nature of program.-The community program to consist ofA. A guidance and adjustment service.

B. As varied educational opportunities as possible.

C. Recreation utilizing all the agencies and facilities available.

D. Part-time employment at socially desirable jobs for those who cannot participate in the program without some financial aid.

5. Wages. To vary according to need, up to maximum of $20 a month with an average not exceeding $12 per month per youth.

6. Basis of allotments.-Allotment of funds to a community to be based upon numbers of youth living there.

7. Cost.-Total Federal funds required if and when all communities have been given their maximum allotments, $40,000,000 a month. National Youth Administration.-On June 26 the President promulgated an Executive order setting up the National Youth Administration as the Government's solution of the emergency youth problems. While the National Youth Administration differs in essential respects from the proposal advocated by the Office of Education, it is still in process of development and it is too early as yet to state with certainty what its program will ultimately be.

EDUCATIONAL OPPORTUNITIES AT SCHOOL AND COLLEGE AGE

In the report of this Office for last year we were able to say that in communities of 5,000 and fewer inhabitants (those in which there had been most curtailment of educational opportunities) attendance in elementary schools returned, in the second semester, to near normal. This was made possible through financial aid to States from Federal funds. While most children were thus enabled to attend school, the length of term was shortened in a large number of districts. Few, if any, city schools were closed 2 years ago, but here also the number of school days was sometimes reduced. From 1930 to 1932 some districts in 19 States lengthened their school year by from 1 to 10 days, but in 29 States it was shortened by other districts from 1 to 11 days, and for the country as a whole, the average school term was shortened by 12 days.

In 1931-32, 6 States reported a term in some districts of less than 91 days, with an enrollment of 192,591 children in the schools having this brief term. Six States also reported a year in some schools of 91 to 110 days, with 209,647 children enrolled. In reports received for the year 1933-34, the enrollment in schools with a year of less than 91 days was 107,516, a fall of 44.2 percent, and in those with a term of 91 to 110 days, it was 147,370, or a decrease of nearly 30 percent. These reductions were more than made up for by increase in attendance in schools with a lengthened year. This means that most children of school age were privileged to attend school in 1933-34 and a considerable percentage of them for a longer time than in 1931-32.

By grades the statistics collected for 1933-34 show a decided increase in enrollment in the third and fourth high-school years, while the enrollment in post-graduate classes increased 70.4 percent.

20481-35-19

Statistics from 567 colleges and universities on the approved lists of the regional associations, show a total enrollment in November 1934 of 975,218 full-time students, as compared with 907,200 in November 1933, an increase of 7.5 percent. A total of 94,331 students in 1,466 institutions were aided by F. E. R. A. funds, and the increase in enrollment in the selected colleges and universities mentioned above was no doubt due in a large part to this assistance. It has been pointed out, however, by Dr. Raymond Walters in his review of these statistics in the December 15 issue of School and Society that there has been an increase in enrollment of 11.3 percent in groups which were not eligible for Federal aid.

EDUCATION FOR UNEMPLOYED ADULTS

Invention and the introduction of new processes, of automatic and semiautomatic machinery, of new materials, and of new products are continuously imposing new requirements upon workers which render their job tenures insecure. The acquired trade skill and experience of the worker may at any time be made of little or no value by the introduction of some new process, or mechanism, or technic.

It is recognized as a factor in the increasing insecurity of workers in their jobs, that applications of science in developing new processes, new materials, new products, new industries, and new technics are being made at an accelerating rate. In the mass such changes are creating a growing demand for occupational-adjustment training as a service organized for adult workers whose acquired trade skills and technics are being continuously and in unpredictable ways devalued by technological advance.

Under these conditions the economic security of workers of all ages depends upon maintenance of occupational adjustment in a work environment which is continuously shifting, and in every field of employment vocational education has been confronted with the problem of helping the adult worker to hold the job he has, or secure a new job.

While maintenance of economic security for employed workers in their shifting work environments has presented problems of increasing difficulty over the past decade, the problems developing immediately in the unemployment situation of the past few years have become even more urgent.

Early in the year requests were sent out from the Office of Education to school superintendents in a selected number of communities, and to State directors of vocational education for reports on services for relief of unemployment being rendered under the cooperative Federal, State, and local programs of vocational education.

A review of activities reported in response to these requests shows that vocational education as organized in our public-school systems

has been functioning extensively for the relief of unemployment in every section of the country.

It has done this by providing special courses for training unemployed workers back into employment, by providing occupationaladjustment training needed to keep employed workers employed, by administering apprenticeship training for unemployed youth, by opening regular vocational courses for enrollment of unemployed adult workers, by finding jobs for unemployed workers and training them for these jobs, by training and employing unemployed workers as teachers of vocational courses for the unemployed, by safeguarding the health, morale, and welfare of the unemployed worker's family during unemployment of the breadwinner of the family, by organizing live-at-home programs for rural families, by vocationally rehabilitating physically disabled unemployed men and women, by cooperating with agencies of public and private relief, rural rehabilitation, and agricultural adjustment.

2. RELATIONS WITH EMERGENCY GOVERNMENTAL AGENCIES

THE CIVILIAN CONSERVATION CORPS

The Handbook for Educational Advisers, prepared by the Office of Education and approved by the Secretary of War January 1934, states the basic philosophy underlying the C. C. C. educational program, and describes the administrative set-up. The Office of Education, acting in an advisory capacity to the War Department, is responsible for the selection and appointment of corps-area and camp educational advisers, and recommends to the Secretary of War the outlines of instruction, teaching procedures, and types of teaching material for use in the camps.

Interest in the camp schools is evidenced by the fact that at the end of June 1935 more than 175,000 enrollees, actually 60 percent of the total enrollment strength, were voluntarily participating in the educational program. Attendance at classes and other activities is entirely voluntary on the part of the men in the camps.

The average number of courses taught per camp is 17. More than half the courses are vocational in nature; 16 percent are on the elementary level; 27 percent are on the high-school level; and 5 percent are college courses. At the end of the public-school term in June, a large number of C. C. C. men were granted eighth-grade and high-school certificates, and diplomas on the basis of credits they had accumulated while attending school in the camps. During the school year about 25,000 enrollees attended nearby night schools. Among the educational activities in the camps are handicraft groups and hobby clubs. According to the June report over 85,000

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