Business And Schools May Have To Cooperate In Job Education

Pernaps 50 per cent of today's high school students would be better off receiving an on-the-job education, industrial relations specialist Charles T. Schmidt Jr. maintains. Everybody knows that jobs are changing, with less demand for operatives and laborefs, more for technciians and whitecollar workers. Those who don't believe the change is profound should be asked to define the job of a micro-miniature solid-state chip technician, Schmidt suggests in Management of Personnel Quarterly, published by the University of Michigah's Bureau of Industrial Relations, Gradúate School of Business Administration. Changes in industrial technology are so fast, in fact, that it may not be possible - or even desirable- for American schools to try to change their educational technology at a comparable rate, says Schmidt, a University of Minnesota f aculty member. How can education hope to meet the ever-changing oceupational requirements for next year, or five, 10, 25, or 50 years from now? he asks. Expense of the constant change alone probably would be prohibitive, even if educational technology could accomplish it, he adds. "It seems abundantly clear t h a t educational institutions have reached the end of the line in this charade,'1 Schmidt writes. "It too of ten happens that the passed through student's diploma won't admit him to anything but a laborers job. When even these jobs become scarce, he will, in spite of his diploma, be in danger of being scrapped as occupationally unfit. Society is in the dangerous position of seeing more and more of its human resources scrapped." This need not, and must not, be the alternative, the author insists: "Educators and educational institutions must recognize their limitations in educating for the world of work. Education is not now and cannot remain within the exclusive jurisdiction of the formal institution. "Realistically, there is only one institutional framework which can successfully accom'- - plish this kind of adjustment: industry and business; but it can't or won't do it alone. "In no way am I suggesting the typical education-business relationship that usually consists of a few guided tours, some nice speeches, and the presen;ation of a new movie projector. I am advocating a direct working alretionship between the school administrators and :he business enterprise- where the education and training is carried out within the corporation according to standards and guidelines mutually agreed to. "Further, I am not suggesting the type of on-the-job training that too often prevails in corporations ; i.e., the one-day job orientation by an untrained supervisor who has far too many other things to worry about to be concerned with occupation training. "At some pomt, educators recognize that all students must be turned out to the world of work and there their formal education (as presently defined) usually ceases," he points out. "My prop oí sal requires an abrupt reversal of this practice. Rather than education ceasing at the factory gate, a significant portion of it beghis there." Within a flexible work-study format, the educational program in the Corporation or business would be individually designed, Schmidt says, to cover five areas : - Skill training for the immediate occupation in which the employé is assigned. - Related skill training stressing the variations of skills required for this occupation throughout the industry. -Related training in a series of increasingly complex skills required for the family of occupations to which the initial occupation is related throughout the industry. - Basic skill training in at least one other occupation outside that family of occupations. - A complete program of traditional subject matter including the latest technology, the physical and social sciences, the humanities, mathematics, and the spoken and written use of the English language.