Summary of Conclusions in Vocational

Education

JOHN M. BREWER, DIRECTOR BUREAU OF VOCATIONAL GUIDANCE, DIVISION OF EDUCATION, HARVARD UNIVERSITY.

A

CLASS of graduate students in Harvard University which had been studying the subject of vocational education during the year ending June, 1920, prepared the following statement as a summary of their conclusions in regard to principles and practice of vocational education. The statement necessarily involves compromises, but was substantially agreed to by the class as a whole. The following persons aided in the preparation of the statement: Edward J. Colgan, Catherine Filene, W. T. Hodges, Morris Master, Lawrence W. Prouty, and John M. Brewer.

1. What is Vocational Education?

Vocational education is preparation for work in industry, commerce, agriculture, the professions, or home making. "Manual training" is not vocational education but is rather a phase of general experience useful for discovery or cultural purposes. "Prevocational" work likewise is for discovery and try-out purposes rather than for actual vocational preparation; the continuation school for children 14 to 18 is at first for guidance and choice, and later for vocational education because the entering pupils have not yet seriously chosen a vocation nor found themselves in a satisfactory job. Vocational education is not in opposition to general education and should fortify and supplement preparation for civic, moral, family, and recreational activities.

2. The Need for Vocational Education.

We are a nation of sixth-grade graduates with a formalized school program which does not attract the attendance of the masses

of our population above the compulsory school age. Therefore vocational education can be used on a part-time or full-time basis. to hold these children under school influence a little longer. While hand skill is now greatly in demand, this demand may decrease as automatic processes multiply. Vocational education may change its form as occupational changes develop, but will always be needed.

3. The Foundations of Vocational Education.

Through try-out courses the schools should discover for the pupils their dominant interests and capacities. Life-career courses should be furnished for the diffusion of occupational information. A wise selection of an occupation can be made only after the student has had experience in finding-studies and in life-career courses. The types of vocational education in any community should be determined to some extent by the character of the local industries. Trade analyses will form the basis of methods and scope of training.

4. General Characteristics of Effective Vocational Education.

Effective Vocational Education should contribute to the ability to become efficient in economic life, so that all may have an opportunity while in school to prepare for occupations which are productive. Vocational Guidance and Industrial Training should tend to produce a more widespread participation and responsibility in economic life bringing about greater personal efficiency and happiness. This may be accomplished by constant application and changes in the Vocational Educational program to fit the economic and sociological needs of the present and immediate future. The means to this end are investigation and surveys, which can be accomplished through the co-operation of employers and workers, including their respective organizations, with the educational administrations. Vocational Education should be broad, relating and applying actual studies to the situation which will be met in life. Trade skill should not be over-emphasized and should be

taught in proportion to the related and basic studies. Plans should provide for the schools to cooperate with employers, workers, and their organizations.

5. Kinds of Vocational Education; Training Before Work.

The trade school furnishes practical training in the more important trades of a particular community, some being devoted to single units, others to convenient combinations; this training is of the same scope as that obtained under the apprenticeship system. Schools of commerce afford training for positions in the fields of manufacturing, transportation, merchandising, and banking. Courses and schools for home economics prepare for efficiency in those trades essential to home-making. Courses and schools for agriculture are designed to prepare not in the science but rather in the industrial and business methods of agriculture. In the technical schools the more highly trained technical experts are prepared. The professional schools provide the specialists in law, medicine, theology, teaching, and engineering.

6. Kinds of Vocational Education; Training During Work.

The compulsory part-time continuation school offers the most promising agency for providing the guidance and instruction needed by boys and girls in industry; its upper range should be extended to age 18, and attendance for 8 hours per week should be required. The part-time co-operative school under public control offers the ultimate, the most helpful, the most democratic, the only practical solution to the complex situation created by the imperative need for vocational education in modern life. Schools in stores and factories, including vestibule schools, are supplementary and specific in character and are legitimate expedients that may be used to provide immediate skills, but are in no sense a substitute for the more general and socially necessary education provided under public control. Direct apprenticeship is a diminishing factor in industry; other agencies must be depended upon to take its place. Extension courses, dull-season courses, intensive

or short-unit courses, and up-grading courses should be developed more extensively, closely correlated with actual trade conditions, and provided for adults as well as minors. Evening schools for those employed in occupations which are not excessively subdivided, highly automatized and enervating will continue to be acceptable and desirable. Attendance at either evening or parttime continuation day schools should be obligatory for employed minors under age 18. Correspondence schools of the type developed by the state universities of the Middle West should be provided at public expense (and academic credit allowed for work performed). Home projects should be made the basis of practically all agricultural education in intermediate and secondary schools.

7. The Administration of Vocational Education.

Because of its specialized nature requiring costly equipment and special teachers, with both educational and industrial experience, vocational education is the most expensive type of education. The United States Government co-operates with the States in supporting vocational education in trade, agriculture, home economics, and teacher training. The Federal Board for Vocational Education exercises general oversight over the vocational schools to which the Federal Government contributes. All States receiving Federal support for vocational education are required to submit their plans for same to the Federal Board for approval. Provision is made in the Federal law for supervisors, co-ordinators, and teachers of related and supplemental subjects. Separate administrative facilities must be provided for the following: commercial, agricultural, trade and industrial, home economics, and teacher training. It is advisable to provide local committees so constituted as to include representatives of labor, employers, and education, as a means of establishing and maintaining right contacts with industry.

8. Special Problems in Vocational Education.

Men and women injured in war and industry furnish problems of guidance, re-education, and rehabilitation. Women furnish the double problem of training for home making and preparation for wage earning occupations as well. Illiterate persons and immigrants must be given special help and educational opportunity in adapting themselves to American industry. Vocational courses for adults frequently disclose the fact that general or broad education is often more needed or desired than strictly vocational work. Inmates of corrective and protective institutions should have preparation for useful and self-supporting citizenship. The Army and Navy are developing extensive plans to combine vocational education with military and naval training.

9. Summaries and Conclusions.

A comprehensive system of vocational education must include some attention to the points mentioned above. Plans now in operation offer a small beginning compared to what should be done. Co-operative effort on the part of employers, unions, educational and political organizations and voluntary associations, will promote the cause. The movement for vocational education as related to modern industry is quite young; nevertheless, good beginnings have been made, and there is great promise for the future. Investigations and surveys have offered chiefest help, particularly those in Richmond, Minneapolis, Cleveland, and Indiana. It must be remembered that vocational education, in order to be effective, requires vocational guidance before, during and after. The results of vocational education must be followed up by investigations to discover weaknesses and to improve methods. Effective vocational education should bring tremendous gains to society through increased production, higher wage, greater satisfaction, and social integration in general.