Vocational training to be aided
A new breed of vocationaltechnical education experts is working to help the four of five Americans in their late teens who are not likely to graduate from college.
In schools around the country they are pioneering a quiet but promising revolution known as the "new careers" program. The program goal is to create new approaches to preparing young people for careers as paraprofessional aides or technicians in fields where they are critically needed, such as health, local government administration, education, welfare, and new technical fields.
In the technical area alone, a dozen new technologies are emerging-for example, electromechanical, nuclear-medical, environmental each offering an estimated 5,000 to 20,000 paraprofessional jobs over the coming decade.
To help in this "new careers" effort, 10 experimental projects totaling more than $5 million are being funded by the Office of Education's National Center for Educational Research and Development (NCERD).
Out of the projects will come educational programs that will have all-new curriculums, advanced teaching techniques, individual ways of learning, and procedures for testing the effectiveness of the programs.
The overall effort includes two- and four-year colleges, technical institutes, high schools, and adult education activities as well as employers, professional groups, government agencies, unions, scientists, and researchers.
"Indeed, anyone who is concerned about helping the schools educate and train people for rewarding paraprofessional careers can count himself in," says Howard F. Hjelm, Acting Deputy Associate Commissioner for NCERD.
Dr. Hjelm cites several projects supported by NCERD as examples of the new approaches. He believes that "taken together, these vocational-technical projects represent a real turning point in our ability to meet critical demands for manpower in public and human services. People looking for a rewarding career will find that's where the real action is going to be."
At the University of California, Los Angeles, Melvin L. Barlow is heading a four-year, $2 million project to come up with new courses and techniques to train people for as many as 40 kinds of medical and dental positions.
Together with 20 community colleges, teaching hospitals, professional gorups, and government officials, Dr. Barlow's team is working on several innovations. One in the management of health facilities will result in an experimental course for a new health career—ward manager. He would relieve nurses of many administrative and housekeeping chores so they could focus on nursing
Another involves work on "cores" of common courses that students in a related specialty could take. In the dental field, for example, project staff are developing common courses for three jobs—dental assistant, hygienist, and lab technician.
"By 1972 we hope to have our new curriculums ready for nationwide distribution through commercial publishers," says Dr. Barlow. He expects that the courses will benefit at least 5,000 people in California alone.
New two-year curriculums in the emerging field of electro-mechanical technology already have produced their first graduates. This May, 17 young men, mostly from underprivileged families, were the first to receive associate degrees in the field from the Technical Institute of Okla-
Today's plastics may be antique of future
NEW YORK (UPI)—One day our descendants will collect plastic antiques just as today's collectors search out a true Tiffany lamp or a Bentwood Chair.
Plastic can become an antique you say? Keep in mind that many of the furnishings and accessories of untold value today were mass production items once upon a time.
There is a surge of plastics all through the house, report those on the furnishings scene a "revolution" that's being felt around the world.
Various industry sources estimate that before this decade is ended, plastics use in furniture will top the billion pound mark. At the recent International Home Furnishings Market in Chicago, an inaugural display featured plastic furnishings from 34 manufacturers representing practically every home furnishings item in use. One study by a chemical company indicated that about half of the 6,000 U.S. manufacturers use plastic components, exclusive of upholstery and surface coatings.
All of us are familiar with plastics around the house such as the fruit juice container, wrappings on items from the drycleaners, the vinyl upholstery or the kitchen counter tops. What's new is plastic for its own sake in furnishings, not its use to imitate wood. Walk through some of the home furnishings displays in the stores to see what we mean.
The crux of the development is a one step molding process which increases production rates while cutting labor costs. For instance, the Polyform Corp. of America, in High Point, N.C., is
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making a well designed table at the rate of one every three minutes.
It does not at all mean the end of the wood craftsmen. But their numbers are dwindling and the cost of mechanical reproduction of a wood carver's master design is increasing.
A similar table of wood would take one week to produce and a clear acrylic three days at a minimum. And cost of using either would be as much as seven or eight times that of molded plastic.
To those in the business, a plastic is a material just as wood, steel or leather is. And each material will perform differently.
"Services for the poor have too fragmented, inflexible, lacking in accountability and contain serious gaps—particularly in programs to provide a decent home for displaced children," said Robert H. Finch, new presidential counselor.
Nixon plans aid to young
WASHINGTON (UPI) - The Nixon administration proposed a new federal program of social services to children under 5, particularly at the poverty level.
homa State University, Stillwater.
The program was developed by the Technical Education Research Center, Cambridge, Mass., as part of a 4-year effort to develop and evaluate complete curriculums for new technologies. The programs are to be general enough to encourage schools throughout the country to adapt them to local situations.
The social service proposals were sent to Congress as an amendment to the administration's proposed welfare reform plan.
Three areas of the proposed social service legislation will emphasize the administration's commitment to American children, Edward Zigler, new director of the Office of Child Development, told a White House news conference.
The Center, headed by Arthur H. Nelson, is also devising curriculums in nuclear-medical, biomedical, and electro-optical technologies. Dr. Nelson notes that in the bio-medical program at one pilot school, 78 per cent of the students came from families
"Many of the jobs waiting in these new fields are within the levels of aspiration and ability of many disadvantaged people," according to Dr. Nelson. They offer excellent ways for economic and social advancement."
earning less than $5,000 a year.
At the Institute for Local Self-
Government, Berkeley, Calif.
teams of city officials and com-
munity college educators are
working on programs to train
people for careers in more than
20 expanding public service occupa-
tions. Some 800 graduates of
tal health positions, while about
the programs already are working
in welfare, recreation, and mental health positions, while about 5,000 students at more than 40 California community colleges are studying all or part of the courses developed.
According to project director Randy H. Hamilton, a special feature of the programs is that "in combination with work training they enable people to advance from entry-level to full-professional jobs depending on their ability and motivation."
Funds for the projects are provided under the amended Vocational Education Act of 1963 which authorizes research, training, and experimental programs to meet special needs in vocational-technical education.
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