Career Education and the Future.

Overview & Synopsis

The report presents emerging trends, future outlook, and potential legislative provisions for career education. Two basic assumptions by the year 2000 are the recognition of education as a lifelong process with open entry/exit and the disappearance of traditional distinctions between learning in a formal setting and learning in the work place. The future will bring coequal collaboration and linkage between education and work sectors, emphasis on individual needs through career education, individualized learning through competency-based assessment, increased opportunities for education and training, expansion of counseling/guidance/placement/information systems of career development, the concept of entitlement or an "educational savings account," loosening of organizational constraints, and the emergence of a national education-work policy. Five basic provisions for comprehensive career education are identified: (1) leadership development (inservice training for teachers, counselors, and coordinators), (2) program grants to States, (3) State planning and evaluation grants, (4) continued authorization of a National Advisory Council on Career Education, and (5) an expanded Federal Office of Career Education. Procedural steps are discussed, and estimated costs are presented. A paper, "Futures Research in Education," and a bibliography are appended. (EA)