ERIC Number: ED356322
Record Type: Non-Journal
Publication Date: 1993-Mar
Pages: 84
Abstractor: N/A
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: N/A
EISSN: N/A
The School-to-Work Transition and Youth Apprenticeship: Lessons from the U.S. Experience. School-to-Work Transition Project.
Bailey, Thomas; Merritt, Donna
The feasibility of youth apprenticeship in the United States was assessed by examining problems and successes of programs that include components of the apprenticeship model. The approach to analysis of youth apprenticeship was to break down the model into four components: student participation, educational content, location of instruction, and credentialling. Four types of school-to-work models that share characteristics with the apprenticeship model were examined: agricultural education, cooperative education, high school career academies, and tech prep. The analysis yielded the following findings: (1) the successes of career academies, tech prep, and agricultural education provide feasible models for combining practical and academic learning; (2) cooperative education often involves little coordination between workplaces and classrooms; (3) more extensive employer involvement is necessary; (4) programs providing a broad educational foundation have difficulty meeting occupation-specific credential standards; and (5) existing models often perpetuate divisions between types of students, and when they include college-bound students, they often exclude less academically oriented students. One of the most serious potential problems with the model concerned location of instruction: whether the workplace could effectively provide a significant portion of the education for a large segment of youth. Problems with developing appropriate credentials were also far from being solved but could only be confronted seriously when more progress had been made on the issues of target group, content, and location. One strategy was suggested to develop a large-scale youth apprenticeship system in which a significant part of the learning takes place on the job: build on the primarily school-based models such as academies and tech prep. Key research areas were identified. (Contains 149 references.) (YLB)
Descriptors: Agricultural Education, Apprenticeships, Cooperative Education, Credentials, Curriculum, Education Work Relationship, Educational Certificates, Feasibility Studies, Models, On the Job Training, Postsecondary Education, Program Content, Secondary Education, Standards, Student Certification, Student Participation, Technical Education, Transitional Programs, Vocational Education, Youth Programs
Publication Type: Reports - Research
Education Level: N/A
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: Commonwealth Fund, New York, NY.; DeWitt Wallace/Reader's Digest Fund, Pleasantville, NY.
Authoring Institution: Manpower Demonstration Research Corp., New York, NY.
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A