(b) Electronic education and information center: ad- 1,650,000 (c) American Foundation for World Trade Studies, Inc. : 5,010,000 Income-Partial Operations-1st year open: (a) Rents (75 percent full) (b) Electronic education and information center__. 137,423,700 24,164,418 18,956,250 10,000,000 11,111,111 (c) American Foundation for World Trade Studies, Inc. 6,810,000 1 This figure would be increased by $15,000,000 of International Club Membership fees (7,500 memberships at $2,000 per membership). 2 Expenses are decreased by the interest on the 1st bond issue of $5,000,000 per year. 3 Expenses are further decreased by the interest on the 2d bond issue of $6,500,000 per AMERICAN FOUNDATION FOR WORLD TRADE STUDIES, INC. year. Physical equipment: Annual budget Office furniture, equipment, etc-----. Library equipment, stacks, microfilm facilities, video equipment, etc____ Books, records, manuscripts, maps, etc-___ Electronic equipment: data storage and retrieval equipment, computers, and other hardware____ Total for physical equipment---- $150,000 500, 000 1, 000, 000 2, 500, 000 4, 150, 000 Software (contracted programs, salaried systems analysts and pro- Publications, subscriptions, reports, surveys, studies, etc__ Travel (U.S. and foreign). Insurance (2 percent on $5,000,000) Maintenance on equipment (1 percent on $5,000,000). Total, annual expenses 1,860, 000 1, 800, 000 100, 000 200, 000 50,000 600, 000 100, 000 50, 000 6, 810, 000 ELECTRONIC EDUCATION AND INFORMATION CENTER OF THE AMERICAN FOUNDATION FOR WORLD TRADE STUDIES, INCORPORATED This center will have three functions: (1) the creation and dissemination of educational and vocational training courses throughout the United States utilizing the most modern and efficient techniques and methods, both electronic and otherwise; (2) the gathering, storing, retrieving, updating and transmitting upon inquiry, information which will be useful to business and government relative to the social, economic, political, governmental and legal conditions and development existing in all countries of the world; and (3) the conduct of research in both the hardware and software used in accomplishing the first two functions. As a part of the Electronic Education and Information Center there will be established a central "registrar" for a nationwide network of facilities at more than 100 accredited universities and some 800 junior colleges (both public and private). With these facilities at their disposal, manufacturers, merchants, and technical, professional and trade associations, will be provided with "custom-built" training programs of the highest academic standards: (1) for their own personnel, and (2) for the personnel of their distributors, retailers and customers. This will make training programs available for all industries, to develop essential skills and abilities in any business function: (1) for any number of students, (2) on flexible weekly schedules (instruction after hours), (3) in virtually every important U.S. city, and (4) at low per capita costs. More Americans had jobs in July, 1967, than in any other month in history. A record 76.2 million persons were working-1.6 million more than a year ago. All major sections of the economy show the recent pickup. Government and other economists are encouraged—particularly with respect to prospective ability of the labor market to absorb 3.6 million young people. Enter the man in the "gray collar". It is a new term to differentiate service workers from blue-collar production workers and white-collar office workers. There are 25 million "gray-collars" in the growing service industries in the U.S. By 1975, economists predict that the total number of jobs will increase by 18%. Here is their forecast of the needs: Professional-technical workers Service workers Of the children born in 1944: 19% left school before the 11th grade, 35% entered college, but only 7% were graduated with a bachelor's degree. This means that 8 of every 10 boys and girls were available to fill jobs which did not require a college degree. Only 1 out of the 8 received any occupational training in the public schools. Moreover, 70% of today's 23-year-olds had no job training in school and have not completed a college education. Yet nearly 80% of all jobs available in the U.S. require some vocational or technical skill. Only now are public schools acknowledging that they were wrong to overemphasize academics at the expense of vocational education. To make up for the past neglect, schools across the country are today putting in equipment, upgrading vocational faculties, giving more vocational guidance to good students, and beginning to work more closely with advisory teams from labor, business and industry on the local level. For example, "schooling for skills:" (1) Allentown, Pennsylvania High Schools, George N. Edison, Director specialized in vocational education (2) J. M. Wright Technical School-Stamford, Connecticut, John Kerpchar, Director-a comprehensive high school-is one of fourteen area Vocational-technical schools (3) Milwaukee Vocational, Technical and Adult Schools, Dr. George A. Parkinson, Director since 1932-35,000 students-1,800 courses-51 Advisory Committees to assure jobs-132 programs "Considered the finest in the land." We are indebted for much of the above material to Cynthia Parsons of the Christian Science Monitor, who visited around the U.S. in the preparation of 10 articles on vocational education, which appeared in the Monitor recently-the 10th on August 15, 1967. How do we tackle and solve this problem nationwide? We are convinced that the major part of the problem is local administration. There are known to be some 2,000 different organizations, of all types and of varying degrees of competence turning out "programs" by the hundreds all over the U.S. A few, a very few, are the work of competent educators and businessmen with the new idea of "business in education". But we know of no other "program" than this one of ours which would make available training programs with the highest academic standards for all industries to develop essential skills and abilities in any business function: (1) for any member of students, (2) on flexible weekly schedules (instruction after hours), (3) in virtually every important U.S. and one Canadian city, and Here are some examples of problems met using the same techniques we would use, and the results: 1. Leaders of progressive railroads conclude that their executives should have a keener appreciation of community affairs and be better equipped to participate in them. The problem is given to this Foundation. Launched for 350 railroad executives through 16 universities is a training program to accomplish this objective. Result: By preparing their executives to participate in community affairs, this program has better equipped them to perform the essential job of selling. 2. An alert group of manufacturers, disturbed lest they were fast losing position in a shifting market, realized that their distributors needed better familiarity with certain new business practices. They asked for help. Instructional materials were prepared and a "pilot" course was started in New York. Yet, even before the pilot course was completed, urgency of the situation demanded that the training be initiated across the Nation. As far as proven instruction techniques and training aids were developed in New York, they were rushed to instructors in participating universities. Result: Within a matter of weeks trained personnel of 278 distributor organizations were better serving old customers and eagerly finding new ones. 3. Leaders of the hardware industry determined that hardware retailers needed to know better store management and how to sell more effectively. A special course in hardware retailing was set up. Selected personnel from wholesalers and retailers were enrolled. Result: Today, 251 better equipped and better informed hardware merchants meet the demands of the Nation's hardware industry. 4. The bankers concluded that many of their customers, proprietors of small businesses, could profit from instruction in management, in marketing and in finance, and that the local banks' sponsorship of such courses would be beneficial. Courses to meet this need were scheduled widely by participating universities. Hundreds were enrolled. Result: The Nation's banks contributed significantly to better management of hundreds of small businesses, while the banks themselves accrued benefits of greatly strengthened customer relations. It is not enough to pass laws and make rules and regulations to solve such problems as "schooling for skills”, and then to neglect to create uniform and consistent programs and actually implement them on local levels, but rather to expect that the problem will be solved by paying out large sums of money to scattered and uncoordinated groups, and by providing manual training only, without also providing some basic schooling in reading, writing and arithmetic. It is not enough to work up "welfare-operated training programs" in the hope that such operated programs will remove the poor from relief rolls. Moreover, work-relief or welfare-operated training programs are not proving very effective, as reported by Eve Edstrom in the Washington Post, September 4, 1967, page 4. A study, prepared for Senator Clark's Poverty Subcommittee was made by Sar A. Levitan of the George Washington University, who is also a consultant for the Ford Foundation in this general field of "war on poverty programs", points out that 3 of every 4 enrollees never completed their assigned courses of training, which seems to suggest that "participants placed little value in the training they received" and that welfare agencies are ill-equipped to train and place workers in jobs. These welfare agencies seem to have "trouble in getting people into training, in keeping people in training, and in finding jobs for them at the end of training." These welfare-operated programs seem to deteriorate "into old-fashioned workrelief projects which did give the poor money to eat on, but did not equip them with skills to become self-sufficient." "Official data from the Welfare Administration", Levitan reported, "revealed that only 1 out of every 4 enrollees received formal vocational education and that only one-third of former participants received adult basic education or high school equivalency training." He reports further that: "It would appear, moreover, that in many cases the quality of the training or education was of doubtful merit . . . There is little reason to believe that (the program) has improved the employability of a significant proportion of the first 150,000 persons enrolled." Levitan concluded that the fact that only 1 in every 4 participants completed training suggests that the enrollees were insufficiently motivated or found the training worthless. It is not surprising, he adds, that persons choose a "safe" relief check over training, particularly when that training is likely to lead to a job that would provide no more income than the relief check provided. |