Charles S. Benson, Current State of Occupational and Technical Training: the Need for Integration and High Quality Programs. Berkeley, California: National Center for Research in Vocational Education, University of California at Berkeley, October 1991.
This report addresses the issue of vocational education as one of our major forms of occupational and technical training. The author stats first that there is a problem with terminology in that vocational education is taken to mean some form of instruction related to work, which is a broad definition that is narrowed by the federal legal definition of federally-aided vocational education as preparation for kinds of work that require less than the baccalaureate. This definition is also seen as out of date.
The author surveys the contemporary scene and details the figures on vocational education in its different forms and different subject areas. He considers the patterns of student course-taking showing the demographics of vocational education. Nearly all students take some vocational courses, and vocational education is not fading away as some have predicted.
The author considers the characteristics of the teachers in these types of courses based on the 1987-88 Schools and Staffing Survey and finds that in certain important respects, vocational teachers are very much like academic teachers. Nearly half hold bachelor's degrees, and 39.3 percent have master's degrees. One important difference is also noted, related to the major field of study at the bachelor's level--the vast majority of vocational teachers studied vocational education rather than an academic discipline.
The author finds that the national data that exists do not say a number of important things about vocational training. The Statistical Abstract of the United States makes only one passing mention of vocational education. There are no national data on achievement and aptitude of vocational students as...