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Vocational education

I should like to underline four points I made in my first report with respect to vocational education.

First and foremost, vocational courses should not replace courses which are essential parts of the required academic program for graduation.

Second, vocational courses should be provided in grades 11 and 12 and not require more than half the student's time in those years ; ;

however, for slow learners and prospective dropouts these courses ought to begin earlier.

Third, the significance of the vocational courses is that those enrolled are keenly interested in the work ; ;

they realize the relevance of what they are learning to their future careers, and this sense of purpose is carried over to the academic courses which they are studying at the same time.

Fourth, the type of vocational training programs should be related to the employment opportunities in the general locality.

This last point is important because if high school pupils are aware that few, if any, graduates who have chosen a certain vocational program have obtained a job as a consequence of the training, the whole idea of relevance disappears.

Vocational training which holds no hope that the skill developed will be in fact a marketable skill becomes just another school `` chore '' for those whose interest in their studies has begun to falter.

Those who, because of population mobility and the reputed desire of employers to train their own employees, would limit vocational education to general rather than specific skills ought to bear in mind the importance of motivation in any kind of school experience.