EDUCATION INDICATORS: An International Perspective

Indicator 3: Secondary Education Enrollment

Strategies for preparing youth for employment1

Many countries have formalized strategies to prepare non-college-bound youth for employment. Japan, Germany, and Sweden are some of the countries that employ such strategies, including combining schooling with work experience and on-the-job training, providing students with extensive occupational information in school, and offering job placement assistance. While the methods that these countries adopt to meet the needs of non-college-bound youth may differ, the U.S. General Accounting Office reports that the Japanese, German, and Swedish systems share a common underlying featureeach has a national policy focused on preparing non-college-bound youth for employment. While the United States offers its upper secondary students a wide range of educational opportunities (including academic and vocational courses), it does not have a comprehensive strategy or set of programs to facilitate students' transition from school to work. The school-to-work transition strategies utilized by Japan, Germany, and Sweden are described in the following paragraphs.

Japan

Japanese youth who wish to enter the labor force after completing secondary school obtain employment almost exclusively through school-based job referral programs. The system is a cooperative effort between employers, schools, and the Public Employment Security Office (PESO) operated by the Ministry of Labor.

The process begins with companies determining their manpower needs and preparing a recruitment card for each job to be filled. The card describes the job, the company, and the terms and conditions of employment. PESO reviews the card for compliance with applicable standards, such as wages and benefits, and approved cards are used by the schools as the basis for job referral assistance. Many companies also send representatives to visit the schools and to meet with placement counselorsbut not with the students, since direct communication between a company offering positions and students seeking employment is prohibited.

The schools take an active role in the job referral system. They maintain placement offices where students can review employer information and recruitment cards. The schools also have full- and part-time placement counselors who assist students with job preferences and advise them on interview and entrance examination strategies. If two or more students from a school are interested in the same position, school staff will confer and decide on the order in which students will apply and take the company's exam.

The schools take an active role in the job-referral sytem. They maintain placement offices where students can review employer information and recruitment cards. The schools have full- and part-time placement counselors who assist students with job preferences and advice them on interview and entrance examination strategies. If two or more students from a school are interested in the same position, school staff will confer and decide on the order in which students will apply and take the company's exam. School staff consider grades and behavioral characteristics important to an employer, such as tardiness and absenteeism, when making such decisions. Those students who are not hired by the first company at which they interview may take entrance examinations in a second or third company.

Students who participate in this system have a better chance of getting a job after graduation than those who do not participate. Nonparticipants and those whom the school does not feel comfortable recommending to a company often end up in temporary or low-wage jobs. After graduation, about 55 percent of students go on to higher education institutions, about 40 percent go into the labor market (the majority have participated in the job referral system), and about 5 percent are unemployed.

Participants in higher education also receive job referral assistance. PESO is not as significant a factor in placing university graduates, since graduates may also apply to companies directly. However, the traditional pattern of direct employer to university faculty or department contact continues to be dominant where prestigious institutions, companies, and fields are concerned. Students also take company examinations and have interviews, but these basically are rituals to confirm decisions reached earlier about a particular student.

Germany

In Germany, schools and employers are linked primarily through an upper secondary education system in which students divide their time between school-based instruction and on-the-job training (apprenticeship) in a chosen occupational area. This approach is often referred to as the dual system. Students who participate in this type of education program generally spend 3 years in the dual system after completing compulsory full-time schooling (i.e., age 15 or 18)including 1 to 2 days each week studying vocational and academic subjects and the remainder of the week receiving on-the-job training with employers. The main goal of the apprenticeship system is to develop a high-quality skilled workforce; trainees are typically taught more than they may actually use on a specific job. Apprenticeships are available for over 400 skilled occupations.

Approximately two-thirds of all students completing lower secondary education directly pursue training in the dual system and approximately 90 percent do so eventually. A May 1992 report on Germany's dual system released by the Federal Ministry for Education and Science indicates that 6 months after completing training, approximately 60 percent of trainees had received unlimited contracts2 of employment either in the occupation in which they were trained or in another field; 10 percent were unemployed; 17 percent either went into the military or received a limited contract3 of employment (either in the trained occupation or another field); and 13 percent were pursuing additional training.

Sweden

Sweden's approach to preparing youth for the workplace begins early in a child's education. Swedish students aged 7_15 are required to complete between 6 and 10 weeks of work orientation in school. They receive an educational and vocational orientation in school and visit workplaces to gain knowledge of different fields of employment, working environments, and occupations.

Unlike students who participate in Germany's employer-driven apprenticeship system, high school students in Sweden who major in vocational fields receive most of their training in school, spending only 10 percent of the first 2 years of high school at a work site. For those who are enrolled in a 3-year upper secondary vocational education program, work experiences extend to 60 percent of the time in the third year. In addition to emphasizing assistance to students in the transition from school to work, Sweden demonstrates its investment in jobless youth by providing guaranteed training or work for all jobless teenagers.

Footnotes

1/ The primary source of information for this sidebar is the U.S. General Accounting Office report, Training Strategies: Preparing Noncollege Youth for Employment in the U.S. and Foreign Countries (Washington, D.C.: 1990). Other sources include P. Cappelli, British Lessons for School-to-Work Transition Policy in the U.S. (Philadelphia: National Center on the Educational Quality of the Workforce, 1993); The Federal Minister for Education and Science, Vocational Training in the Dual System in the Federal Republic of Germany (Bonn: 1992); U.S. Department of Education, Japanese Education Today (Washington, D.C.: 1987); Central Statistical Office, Regional Trends 28 (Great Britain: Crown, 1993); and Central Statistical Office, Social Trends 22 (Great Britain: Crown, 1992).

2/ Unlimited contracts of employment generally last three to four years, and can be renewed or made permanent if both parties so desite.

3/ Limited contracts can last from 6 weeks to 4 or 5 years. Participants generally go on to permanent jobs.

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