A regional planning model for occupational education

Abstract

Section 123 of the Vocational Education Amendments of 1968 clearly indicates that State boards of Education are expected to develop and maintain a state-local program planning procedure that assures the best use of federal funds in light of important training needs of all people as well as requirements of employers. The purpose of this paper is to illustrate a general linear programming model that can be used by state boards to evaluate alternative decisions about the efficient allocation of these funds to public schools. A recent application of the model in a Pennsylvania labor market area is used to illustrate its generalizability and utility for state-local program planning. In the model public schools are viewed as one sector in a state system that includes all formal agencies who produce occupationally trained graduates. A common occupational language jointly developed in the U.S. Office of Education and the U.S. Department of Labor is used to match educational outputs with labor force requirements. The model is designed to be used in connection with demographic information currently available in the different state government agencies, i.e. Departments of Commerce, Labor and Education.