like the smoker who reads the cancer studies and then lights up another cigarette, our institutions may know at
the periphery that the era of retraining has arrived but the centre still emphasizes training.

Iynore the written goals of an institution. The real goals of the institution are in the budget. Ask what
proportion of the budget of any two-year institution is allocated to retraining activities and functions.
Nevertheless, as the everything-is-possible years of the 1960s led into the everything-is-off 1970s and on to the
dnything-can-be-cut 1980s, two-year institutions began to adapt. While the basic just-in-case system continued,
increasing questions were asked about the market legitimacy of programs.

The result was invariably an elaborate solution: extensive planning operations with economists, statisticians,
and bureaucrats of every hue, monkish in their dedication to revealed truth, determining exactly how many
vibration technicians are currently working in Ontario and how many will be required in Thunder Bay in May,
1989. These planning departments are good at counting but fanciful at projecting. They can add up how many
are currently working but, if truth be told, they do not know whether any vibration technicians will be needed in
1989, much less how many in Thunder Bay. Projecting job demand beyond a year or so relies on too many
assumptions to be much advanced over tea leaf reading.

If we cannot accurately project job demand in 1989 or 1990, how can we move our ponderous organizations
into position to respond to business and industry at that time? The answer is contained in the question. We do
not Know how to get there at the same time as they do, but we could arrange to follow them all the way there.
We could reinvent our organizations and our development and delivery of programs so that they are responsive
and adaptive.

Just-in-time

Just in case is a system where students are pushed through the system independently of whether there are
jobs available or not. Just-in-time is based on an entirely different premise. Instead of developing elaborate
systems lo sce whether the just in case batch system will meet future needs, the two-year institutions would
produce just what is needed in time for the next step, which is turned to produce just in time for the next, and
soon. just-in-time training would produce graduates not on speculation but, instead, on the basis of jobs.
just-in-time pulls students through the system on the basis of real rather than potential jobs.

This is a dramatically different view of training and of how training organizations operate. Rather than
commit ten man years to ascertain how many cellular radio technologists will be needed in 1990 so that we can
get started planning in 1985 for program launch in 1988, a system is developed to produce whatever number of
cellular radio technologists are needed just-in-time for employers to put them to work,

This will obviously mean two things: improved program development strategies and revamped delivery
mechanisms. Diploma programs currently take one to three years from idea to implementation and then two
more years until the first grads emerge. The development time could be cut from years to weeks and the
program delivered in a series of short-time blocks of one topic at a time. This would allow easy movement
between work and study and would allow colleges to integrate training and retraining in one delivery model.

As lor delivery, programs which have one entry point for incoming students and one exit point for graduates
(wo years later are obsolete. A system which allows for short concentrated periods of study which can be taken
consecutively or with alternating periods of work is an imperative in the era of retraining. The batch system has
been convenient for educators but a problem for graduates and for employers. We need to cede some of our
convenience and develop a system which will produce a continuous flow of graduates or at least many exits per
year. We must be able to increase or decrease this flow on short notice.

Nearly two decades after its emergence'as a major sector of education in this country, it is time to reinvent

 

 

 

the community college. The concept of just-in-time has obvious utility in this procgss

DOUGLAS COLLEGE
ARCHIVES

 
 

John S. Scharf, Chairman, Development Division
Kelsey Institute of Applied Arts and Sciences

 

 

Idited and reprinted with permission of College Canada (September 1, 1985), Association of Canadian Community
Colleges, 110 Eglinton Avenue West, 2nd Floor, Toronto, Ontario, CANADA M4R 1A3.

For further information, contact the author at the Kelsey Institute of Applied Arts and Sciences, P.O. Box 1520,
Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, CANADA S7K 3R5.

 

 

Suanne D. Roueche, Editor
March 7, 1986, Vol. VIII, No. 7

INNOVATION ABSTRACTS ts a publication of the National Institute for Staff and Organizational Development, EDB 348, The University of Texas at Austin,
Ausuin, Texas 78712, (512) 471-7545. Subscriptions are available to nonconsortium members for $35 per year. Funding in part by the W. K. Kellogg
Foundation and Sid W, Richardson Foundation. Issued weekly when classes are in session during fall and spring terms and monthly during the summer.

© The University of Texas at Austin, 1986
Further duplication is permitted only by MEMBER institutions for their own personnel. ISSN 0199-106X

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