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gee INNOVATION ABSTRACTS ‘3
2DILAS

JGR :; :
o~ CAN Published by the National Institute for Staff and Organizational Development
‘a With support from the W. K. Kellogg Foundation and Sid W. Richardson Foundation

 

 

 

 

FROM JUST IN CASE TO JUST-IN-TIME

Just in case

Just in case the economy needs trained people, our colleges and technical institutes produce a huge batch
once or twice a year. We take in more students than we can handle in a program just in case some drop out.
We give them courses they do not need for foot-in-the-door training just in case a small number of them might
remember some of it a few years later. And we graduate them just in case there is something that they can do
with their training. Still later, we evaluate the program just in case it is doing something other than what it is
supposed to be doing.

Even when many of our graduates fail to obtain employment, we continue to produce batches of them just in
case things get better. We even have a name for that: counter cyclical training. We may not be certain why our
graduates fail to get jobs and may not even want to know, but just in case it is the economy—and not the
program—we maintain production.

For example, college X registers 50 students each year in a two-year program to train Resilient Flooring
Technologists. Most of the graduates in this program have obtained jobs in the field. However, in a follow-up
study of the 1984 graduates, it was found that only four of them obtained jobs for which they were trained. By
January, 1985, college X found out why, A major technological development had reduced the demand for
Resilient Flooring Technologists by 90%. However, the college had nearly 50 students in the second year of the
program and 50 who had just started the first. What would college X do? It is almost certain that both the first
and second year groups in the program would continue as if nothing had changed. And it is more than likely
that a new group of 50 would be admitted to the program for fall, 1985. Just in case.

This kind of system is inefficient and ineffective, but many argue that it is acceptable because learning, is
intrinsically good. However, it is not only uneconomic; it is unethical. When Ford or Phillips build too many
cars or television sets, inventory increases. If inventory builds up too much, firms go out of business (or, if the
company is big enough, it is rescued by the government). Two-year institutions have unsold inventory too. The
difference is that we do not have to worry much about whether our inventory gets hired. Our graduates
disperse: some get jobs; some do not. We continue to produce more.

Some will be exercised over classifying graduates as inventory and will read it as evidence of an inhumane
approach. But what is more inhumane than continuing to graduate people in a training program when there are
few if any jobs? Call them unsold inventory or God’s children: our system treats them like commodities.

Some will argue that education is an end in itself, and this justifies our system. If it is liberal education that is
being discussed, indeed that is a persuasive case. However, with the exception of the CEGEPS in Quebec and a
few programs in other provinces, the primary mandate of the two-year institution is not education and
particularly not liberal education: it is training. Students do not come to two-year institutions to learn as an end
in itself. Most of them did that for twelve years in school, and they attend two-year institutions to obtain
marketable skills. As a test, ask yourself how many students stay at two-year institutions any longer than they
have to. Compare that to the number you know who appear to have been going to university for decades.

Just a moment

The major developments for two-year institutions in Canada took place in the 1960s, The economy was
expanding, the baby boom was overheating the universities, and governments seemed to think they had lots of
money. Whole systems of colleges and technical institutes were launched and initially almost every program
was two years long, whether registered nurse or clerk typist, just in case this was appropriate. This fit the
times. Just in case probably worked because the economy was creating jobs fast enough to absorb the annual
batch of graduates.

The world is very different now. The number of young people entering the work force will decline each year
for the next decade, and few new jobs will be created. Of those who will be working in 1990, 90% are already
working. The need for retraining has become obvious even to the most insular and institutionalized, However,

 

KO} Community College Leadership Program, The University of Texas at Austin, EDB 348, Austin, Texas 78712