Imágenes de páginas
PDF
EPUB
[graphic][subsumed][merged small]

TH

George Washington University

Employment Service-Public School

Cooperation

By HARRY A. JAGER

Chief, Occupational Information and Guidance Service
Division of Vocational Education
U. S. Office of Education

HE common interests on the Federal, State, and local levels of employment services and public education have long been recognized. Within the educational framework the relationship of guidance services to employment services is particularly clear.

Before the war numerous individuals in the employment service and public education maintained cordial personal contacts. These contacts were about to result in closer official liaison when the war changed the entire objective of employment. In the concentrated endeavor to put manpower into critical industries, plans for school-employment understandings were laid aside, but not forgotten.

At this time certain developments promise happy auspices for new beginnings. Guidance services in States and localities are being greatly stimulated under the operations of the George-Barden Act. Schools are everywhere establishing programs staffed by better trained counselors. The elements of placement and follow-up are important phases of these programs. The employment services on the other hand appear to have reached a stabilized pattern of Federal-State relationships. Responsibilities of designated officers point the way to a method for initiating better schoolemployment service liaison.

At this juncture there appear to be at least four ways in which schools through their guidance services may cooperate with employment services. The first is in the continuity between the school and the employment service, inherent in the fact that ordinarily the individ

ual requires the services of each in turn. The second is the fact that the tools and techniques of the guidance program are in many cases identical with those of the employment office. Tools and techniques developed in the one organization should be made readily available to the other. The third is in the area of occupational information. The employment office has many data at its disposal useful in the counseling process of the school. The school can in many ways add to these data, but in any case if the facts are made part of the pupil's knowledge, he makes a much better client when he comes to the employment office to get a job. In the fourth place workers in both agencies require training, a large part of which must have a common core. This statement applies particularly, of course, to the employment counselor and the school counselor. The fact that almost every State is now developing counselor training as an outgrowth of the use of George-Barden funds should add materially to the resources of the employment service in securing counselors with better preemployment training and in supplying further resources of in-service training.

It is a pleasure for me to note that one of the contributors to this issue of the EMPLOYMENT SERVICE REVIEW is a former State Employment Service official who has now become a State Supervisor of Occupational Information and Guidance.* This fact

*See "Ohio ES Aids School Guidance Programs," John G. Odgers.

[merged small][merged small][graphic][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small]

Guidance helps young people understand
their abilities and opportunities.
The Past

HIO is proud of its long history of cooperation

Ohio State Employment Service for the purpose of assisting high school graduates in securing employment in line with their interests and qualifications. Probably the greatest period of expansion in this direction came in 1941 and '42 when a State-wide cooperative placement program was established. In those years a good percentage of Ohio's high school graduates, who became active job seekers on graduation, were assisted by the Employment Service in securing their first jobs. This program has continued in effect each year since 1941.

The basic steps in the operating program include: 1. Discussions with senior class members by OSES and school personnel to determine who will be active job seekers.

2. Registration of all active job seekers, with school record information and teachers' ratings of traits supplementing normal registration information.

3. Employer contacts, and general publicity concerning the program, for the purpose of developing as many employment opportunities as possible.

4. Selection and referral of graduates to available jobs on the basis of matching employer needs with applicant qualifications and interests, using aptitude tests as a step in selection when appropriate tests are available.

No description is given herein of the research and study entailed in the initiation and continuation of this cooperative placement program, or its adaptation to meet the wide variety of rural and urban communities in Ohio. Instead, this article will deal with the expanding concept of cooperation between Ohio schools and the Ohio State Employment Service.

The Present

For any given community, assume that the cooperative placement program sketched above is in effect. Are the school and the Employment Service thereby making complete use of each other's services and facilities? The obvious answer is that a good start has

been made but much room for progress still exists. Traditionally, education has operated in terms of groups of pupils to be taught and bodies of subject matter to be learned. The trend, fortunately, is toward expanding this concept to meet the needs of the individual and, as a natural concomitant, the needs of the community in which he lives. In the light of this approach, education must concentrate on the qualities that can be developed in the student, and on the opportunities open to students for development and for the realization of their carefully plotted goals and objectives. The school has the responsibility for helping each individual discover his potentialities and his energies to the end that he may prepare himself to take advantage of existing or predictable opportunities.

School's Three Major Obligations

With respect to the individual pupil, the school. guidance service has three major obligations:

1. To help him learn as much as possible about himself: his skills, knowledge, aptitudes, interests, and limitations.

2. To help him learn as much as possible about educational and vocational opportunities and require

ments.

3. To help him match his qualifications with the requirements of those opportunities which are of interest to him, for the purpose of determining a course of action based on sound, realistic planning.

Specialized tools and information are necessary if the school is to perform these services for its pupils. Progressive schools, therefore, are constantly on the lookout for new guidance aids. Through the cooperative placement program carried on with the State ES, school people became familiar with PART IV of the DICTIONARY OF OCCUPATIONAL TITLES, with organized local labor market information, and in many cases with specific aptitude test batteries and other placement aids such as the JOB DESCRIPTIONS, JOB FAMILIES, and OCCUPATIONAL GUIDES. The many local demands for these tools made an expanded Statewide cooperative program one of the first orders of business following the recent reactivation of the Guidance Services Section of the State Department of Education.

One of the most urgent requests by local school people was for the use of the new GENERAL APTITUDE TEST BATTERY (GATB) as a school counseling aid. Other requests involved tests for selecting students for vocational courses; local, State, and national occupational information; training in the use of PART IV of the DICTIONARY; and various others.

No attempt has been made in the State to slow down or interfere with programs which are being developed independently between local schools and local OSES offices. However, as a result of the general interest and our desire to use these tools to the greatest possible advantage, an experimental cooperative program has been established between the OSES Testing and Counseling Sections and the Guidance Services Section of the State Department of Education. Five communities in the State have been selected as pilot centers and

a formalized program is now in operation. The purposes of this program are:

1. To promote and obtain the advancement of guidance activities in local schools through the use of tools and techniques now available through the OSES. 2. To extend research in the use of ES tools and techniques (GATB, DOT IV, etc.), in order to determine the extent of their applicability on the secondary school level with respect to guidance and placement. 3. To establish the best possible program for the placement and adjustment of youth in any selected community.

4. To improve the services of the schools and the OSES to the youth of the community.

5. To provide a pattern for future expansion of counseling and testing activities in both organizations and for cooperation between them.

In addition to the purposes stated above, our written program includes, for each agency, statements of responsibility at the State and local level, standards of eligibility for participation as a pilot community, and an outline of the operation of the program including selection of personnel, training, and program content.

The program commits each school and each local OSES office to the assignment of responsibility to one person, and to the recognition of the role of all other personnel on the school and Employment Service staff. It establishes six full days of pre-program training, plus additional in-service training as necessary. It sets a minimum of one hour per day to be devoted to the program with an early goal of one full-time school counselor for each 500 pupils. Finally, it requires. prior commitment regarding cost for personnel time, travel to training (at one centralized point for all five communities involved), records and supplies, basic guidance materials, and space and equipment.

The pre-program training includes training in the use of DOT IV as a counseling aid, the use and interpretation of the GATB as a guidance tool, and the adaption of these and other ES tools, information, and techniques to a school guidance program.

Versatile Aids in School Guidance

It is interesting to note that ES tools and information can make a significant contribution to almost every phase of the school guidance program. The GATB and other tests assist in analysis of the individual. Occupational information available through the ES is put to work by the counselor, by the teacher, and by the school librarian. PART IV of the DicTIONARY OF OCCUPATIONAL TITLES is the best single tool available for helping the counselor to assist the individual pupil in determining the vocational significance of the information he has about himself, as a basis for matching it against attainable educational and vocational goals.

The Future

Ohio's program of school-Employment Service cooperation is in its infancy! We see opportunities for expansion which will require several years for realization.

Many of the values gained from our experimental program will be available to other communities by the next school year. Many of the activities initiated will involve community-wide cooperation. Particularly worthy of mention in our definite plans are:

1. GENERAL APTITUDE TEST BATTERY maturation research to determine the possible use of this battery at early high school levels.

2. Research in the use of GATB as a selector for vocational trainees-by testing at the sophomore level and correlating results with criteria of success in vocational courses during the ensuing 3 years.

[merged small][graphic]

Labor Market

Information

for Schools

By CLARE L. LEWIS Employment Consultant for Vocational Placement New York State Employment Service

THE

HE Employment Service in New York State, as well as schools and community agencies, have realized that, in order to make any counseling program for young people really effective in a community, not only placement counselors but counselors in schools, Veterans Service Centers, and social agencies, too, need as much knowledge as possible concerning the economic background of their particular area and locality. They need information, too, on current labor market conditions and an up-to-date knowledge of industrial and occupational demands. Such being the situation, the New York State Employment Service, in an effort to contribute to a realistic approach to current conditions on the part of school counselors and others whose task it is to deal with young people who are about to enter the labor market for the first time has, twice a year since 1944, been issuing and circulating to counselors and other interested individuals in the State, a publication called the LABOR MARKET OUTLOOK.

George Washington University

Labor market facts will help him find the right job after training.

Material in the OUTLOOK has of course varied from time to time, but each issue has included:

A. A background description of important labor market areas of the State with stress on leading industrial activities, and

B. A picture of current labor supply and demand in each area at present, with a statement also of the prospects for the near future, important industrial and occupational needs, and prevailing rates for beginners. and for various types of skills.

The information given is based primarily on reports prepared by local offices of the New York State Employment Service and represents both the experience and opinion of local office personnel regarding labor market factors affecting employment opportunities for

young inexperienced workers under 21 years of age. Some issues, too, contain a section describing specific applicants and situations encountered in the employment offices to illustrate why young people have failed to get and hold jobs. This material has filled a longfelt need and has been widely used in connection with courses in occupations, economic citizenship, social studies, or civics, conducted in high schools throughout the State.

There has been a series of special articles also aimed at providing useful information to counselors and others who are responsible for assisting young people in their occupational adjustment. The subject matter in these articles is varied. The following titles give an idea of the coverage of the material presented:

"Counseling and Placement of Young WorkersA Challenge to Schools and the Employment Service"

"Services Available to Veterans Through the Employment Service"

"Counseling Tools and Information"

"The School-Public Employment Service Cooperation Program"

"Beginners' Jobs in Selected Industries" "General Clerical Work, Theory and Practice" "Labor Laws Affecting Employment of Minors" "Occupational Classification of Entry Job Seekers" Some of these articles have been suggested as a result of discussions with school counselors themselves. In fact, from the beginning, every effort has been made by NYSES to keep in touch with counselors in schools and community agencies, with a view to finding out what types of information would be most useful in order to make the material included in the OUTLOOK as practical and as pertinent as possible. As further assistance to counselors, there has been included in each issue a list of sources of information regarding labor market conditions in various occupations and industries.

So far, this attempt on the part of the Employment Service to supply the schools and community agencies with current occupational and industrial information has met with most favorable response. In other words, in the whole plan of cooperation between the Employment Service in New York and the schools, the LABOR MARKET OUTLOOK has come to play a very important part.

Vocational Trainees Graduate to Jobs

By RAYMOND L. SULLIVAN
Director, Mississippi State Employment Service

N JULY 1947, the Trades Training Institute of Mississippi State College called upon the Mississippi State Employment Service for assistance. Its problems:

Making courses of study realistic in terms of employment possibilities within the State; reducing drop-out and change of course rates; making more attractive to enrollees certain unpopular courses; appraising effectiveness of course content and instruction methods in terms of preparation for jobs; providing positive counseling and placement service to graduates.

Assigning a 3-member team representing programs and methods, labor market analysis, and occupational analysis, the MSES responded to the request for assistance.

The project advanced on several fronts simultaneously:

A statistical study spotted drop-out and change-ofcourse trouble areas and gave clues as to causes. The detailed content of each of the 15 courses was submitted to at least two authoritative employers of men in those occupations for analysis and comment; complete studies were made of each course as to student

May 1948

flow, progress of trainees, equipment, course of study balanced against journeyman criteria, methods of instruction, attitude of trainees to course, ultimate objectives of trainees, effectiveness as shown by application of ORAL TRADE QUESTIONS to selected trainees; interviews (made through the 34 local offices) with every appropriate employer in the State to determine for each occupation: number of qualified workers currently needed, additional number to be needed during the next 6 months, additional number to be needed during second 6-month period; count of available applicants in the State for each occupation for which training was given; planning for a comprehensive placement program in anticipation of first class of graduates.

Factual material was assembled into a report, presented graphically, by statistical tables and by narrative summary.

Results included: Installation of two suggested courses of training not hitherto included; revisions and improvements in a number of courses; provision of recommended equipment and supplies toward more (Continued on page 24)

17

« AnteriorContinuar »