Vocational Training

VOCATIONAL TRAINING. Logically, the term voca tional training should include preparation for the practice of medicine, law and other professions; but it is convenient to restrict it to courses of regular instruction intended to fit boys and girls for commerce, domestic life or some branch of industry. The rapidly growing complexity of industry and commerce and the intensity of international competition compelled all the pro gressive nations to consider the provision of vocational training, in this sense, to replace or to supplement the methods of appren ticeship (q.v.) which sufficed in simpler times. It is, moreover, widely held that under the conditions of modern life, especially in great cities, some form of education, continued through the critical years of adolescence, is needed to preserve the physical, intellectual and moral health of the masses of the people; and vocational training, with its appeal to the practical interests of young wage-earners, is regarded as particularly effective.

Administration.—In some countries vocational schools are administered as part of the general educational system. In Eng land, for instance, they are provided by the ordinary local authorities for education and subsidized through the Board of Education. In other countries vocational training is treated rather as a distinct educational function.

Types of Courses.

In the chief countries many large cities provide vocational schools offering "all-day" courses lasting from two to four years, sometimes in combination with a modified form of trade apprenticeship. These prepare pupils for office, business and other commercial activities, or serve industries such as agriculture, engineering, furniture making, upholstery, dress making (see TECHNICAL EDUCATION ; CONTINUATION SCHOOLS), which offer scope for highly trained skill or taste, scientific or technical knowledge and capacity for leadership. But by far the greatest amount of vocational training is given everywhere in part-time continuation classes: i.e., classes which provide a few hours of instruction per week for boys and girls who have left the elementary schools and have already entered upon some occu pation. In parts of Germany and Czechoslovakia attendance at continuation classes, generally in the evening and on Sundays, was long ago imposed upon elementary school leavers ; but the modern tendency, largely influenced by the pioneer work of Kerschensteiner at Munich, is to require employers to release their young employees for instruction during working hours. In

England and Germany laws making this system universal and compulsory have been adopted since the World War, but financial difficulties in both countries retarded the development.

In some countries "works schools," maintained by employers for the training of their employees, are an important supplement to the public provision for vocational education. They are espe cially numerous and well-organized in Germany, but in England met with some disfavour on political and educational grounds.

Finally, it should be noted that programmes of vocational training almost always include some teaching intended to con tinue and widen the student's general education. Instruction in the duties of citizenship is common, and in many cases attention is given to physical training and hygienic teaching. (T. P. N.) Trade and industrial training is secured by workers in various ways : learning on the job by the pick-up method without educational supervision, (2) learning in shop-training departments or vestibule schools maintained by employers, (3) learning as in dentured apprentices, (4) learning in trade, technical high, con tinuation or evening schools and (5) learning in shops and schools according to some co-operative arrangement between industrial establishments and the schools.

Vocational education received its first great stimulation in 1906 when the National Society for the Promotion of Industrial Education was organized for the purpose of extending vocational education throughout the United States. This society was very influential and succeeded within a decade of years in marshalling sufficient legislative support for a national law (the Smith-Hughes Act passed Feb. 23, 1917), fostering and aiding vocational educa tion. Under the terms of this act, Federal financial aid is granted to public schools offering approved vocational, agricultural, home economics and trade and industrial education courses of less than college grade to pupils 14 years of age and older. Support is also given to teacher-training institutions preparing vocational teachers, to civilian rehabilitation training and to special voca tional researches. The law gives no aid to commercial education.