Winnipeg Free Press

Winnipeg Free Press (Newspaper) - July 8, 1987, Winnipeg, Manitoba Winnipeg free press july Page 7 focus life after High school by Lionel Orlikov special to the free press what does High school graduation mean the current review of Edu cation in Manitoba provides an Opportunity to step Back and it remains an annual graduation from High school represents the clearest step to the other rites of passage into adulthood Are not so Well defined getting a social insurance driving a and cashing the first pay almost High school graduates in Manitoba were handed their diplomas this perhaps 30 per cent Are going on to higher Educa Tion in the for these continuing students the passage is quite Well High schools Are geared to the interests of this graduates not going on to College have options that Are less it is possible to graduate without being prepared to choose function in a learn a Job requiring special continue learning on ones or manage personal they May have Little or no idea what they can and they May have few resources in facing solving problems and overcoming difficult for those who have worked Dur ing High school the chances of employment Are having a Friend or relative in a firm who does the hiring also increases the prospects for some also will eventually return to some form of further red River col lege students average 27 years in but to a growing number of graduates life is in a holding it is adulthood some Stu dents even Are denied land this sub group is afraid to leave High its members have ignored agonizing about career they Likely will Drift Back in september and attempt to enrol in they postpone the inevitability of finish ing sometimes because school provides them the one secure and understood place in their Ono no work grads realize too late that their diplomas have Little substance they have come through courses where the teachers promised a Light work Load in Exchange for cooperation in the both the teacher and the students get what they order in the classroom is and students do not have to work too kids come to what these students Lack is the skills to go on to higher education or command attention in the Job frills increasingly Stu dents and teachers Are sorted into courses that open More or fewer doors after High the double Zero courses represent virtually unrestricted 04 and 05 courses provide less Opp Ortu frequently the knowledge provided to Slowtrack classes re quires Low level cognitive pro upset few graduates Are locked into a situation from which there is no escape they Are being asked to move skilfully Between the traditional culture of tribal Folk society and a modern Urban Civili and be Able to find values in both a Good number return to Home communities where there is horrendous but family and How to promote the successful transition from childhood and school to adulthood and Community is the crucial Issue facing our cur rent review of High school Educa Why More students do not be Lieve the rhetoric about the value of education As far As they Are con Why bother too Many school principals and counsellors have responded by dealing with symptoms rather than they Are consumed by fighting poor attendance does sending a letter about missing 5 classes to parents of an 18 year old student teach punctuality and politeness school officials Are Cor rect in recognizing that employers the High school curriculum is still geared to the interests of the minority who go on to ask youth will you be Here Tomor Row rather than what is your Mark in but they ignore fundamental Job experience and work Educa Tion Are two More serious attempts to make school the demand for youth labour is declining not Only in manufacturing but in nearly every service Industry except retail Trade and even fast food establish ments now Are hiring Middle aged recent graduates join lines for jobs that already Are and for always will the sense of uselessness is the severest Shock which a human can sustain what do we need and re Mem kindergarten pupils this fall graduate in 2000 and adolescent growth so intellectual should be the bed Rock for secondary school the quest for identity requires youth to develop autonomy and initiative that will Lead to competencies recognized Asun our schools Only be Stow Success to a few favored with a narrow Range of intellectual and essentially verbal ignored Are practical artistic the ability to and technical com growth also demands individual not passivity under teacher becomes More powerful when classroom studies Are combined with challenging Concrete activities As Community Gen eral should include both Mastery of disciplinary knowledge and activities of everyday tracking or putting them into can no longer be to Call some students academic and others Nonaca Demic has a devastating Impact on How teachers think about the Stu dents and How students think about we say to you Are the you will go on to further to others we you will not go on to you Are not students Are divided Between those who think and those who in life for All of us is a blend of a single track one that provides a Core education for All students plus keeps options open for both work and fur ther education students would receive the credits and knowledge needed both for College admission and As would be developed along with the current upgrading attempts to smarten up for an elite and dumb Down for others Are building a triple track system channelling youth into Blu Ewhite Collar or fringe in con Japan with much like ours with considerable Varia Tion in ability and class Back requires All of them to cover the same and accounts for much of that country educational High schools should not be implementing new we can build upon a number of existing our few alter native High for retain even High risk students when they have curriculum grounded in their Are encouraged to participate in class and be a member of a we should encourage the school incorporating multiple Agency pro Grams agencies that assist the transition of youth into As native employment services into the school and the potential limits of school Reform should be recon Many teenagers from Low income and minority families will not see any payoff from graduation unless Overall life conditions improve through Job provision of child social and health ser and affirmative action to tory restraint policy effects on Trade promotion is worrying by John Best special to the free press Ottawa if there is one area of their activities that Canadian governments should not mess around it is Export Canada depends on exports for something like a third of its National More than almost any other industrialized we depend on exports for our economic a report published by the com Mons committee on external affairs and International Trade suggests in governments have been Messing around altogether too much in this vital the report of the con Servatia dominated committee makes for sober it tells of slashed Trade promotion budgets and of a pattern of diplomatic Post shutdowns for some strange and perverse hits particularly hard at the More Trade oriented of Canadian foreign by implication at it raises the question of whether Trade development should continue to be a responsibility of the external affairs or whether diplomacy and Trade should not be handled by two separate departments As used to be the As a result of a major bureaucratic reorganization carried out when prime minister Pierre Trudeau liberals were in office several years Trade and Industrial develop ment has become the external affairs departments largest single it consumes about 32 per cent of the departments financial and human resources million and employees last the which held a series of hearings on external affairs Trade activities in comes Down especially hard on government policies which have caused the departments Trade development budget to fall from million last fiscal year to million while the Overall departmental budget is growing by six per this is the second straight year that allocations for Trade develop ment have the Post closings of last year and the year before had a serious Impact on Trade Rio de Jan Abu Dahabi and Quito were All focussed predominantly on the committee the reorganization carried out under Trudeau gave external affairs important responsibilities in the Field of immigration As Well As it already had Overall Juris diction Over the Canadian International development which administers Canadas billion foreign Aid the combination of bureaucratic consolidation and fiscal restraint has placed the department in a pain Ful the dimensions of which Are vividly portrayed in the committees it is say the to expect the external affairs department to process substantially higher immigration Levels adminis Ter Ever higher volumes of foreign Aid Cut an Export Market develop ment As suggested by a government task Force almost Dou ble its Grant contributions for Cul Tural and academic As ordered by the Cabinet last fall absorb a comprehensive 10percent Cut in personnel by also As ordered by the Cabinet absorb an permanent million budget Cut 1986 and at the same time maintain or enhance its Trade promotion ser something must the com Mittee it does on to recommend what amounts to an exemption of Trade promotion from present and future cos cutting pro and suggests that budget savings must never be achieved at the expense of Canadas Trade and economic the commit tee does not consider Trade promo Tion to be an appropriate target for deficit the report re referring to the conservative governments continuing Campaign to bring Down the Federal budget this is valuable and timely the tory government has pursued a contradictory course on foreign on the one hand it never ceases broadcasting the message that Canada is vulnerable to shifts in International Trade patterns and must work harder to hold on to its markets and find new on the other it cuts Corners on promotion activities that Are the Lifeblood of successful Market Multi even cutting the funding of an Agency such As the Canadian commercial whose support can often make the differ ence Between a Canadian company Landing a foreign government procurement contract and not Landing Canada has not been doing so Well that it can afford to sit Back and Stop last year its Merchan Dise Trade surplus fell to billion from billion the year largely because of soft prices for primary resources and agricultural our Export performance is in rela Tive decline in most areas of the the United states and certain Pacific rim countries being except perhaps the government and Industry have become mesmerized by the accessible and relatively easy american where 80 per cent of our exports a Good Way for the government to begin eradicating the present Mal aise would be to free foreign Trade from the bureaucratic Fetters that now entangle the government might restrain its ten Dency to Penny Inch in an area where Penn pinching just does not final offer selection Bill opposed from All sides labor minister Al Mackling final offer selection legislation has reconciled the irreconcilable even before its Winnipeg chamber of Commerce presi Dent Dorothy Dobbie and University of Manitoba marxist economist by Gonick Are sing ing out of the same hymn they say the controversial process is an unwarranted intrusion into free collective says Dobbie what is the Point of this legislation when it was proposed a couple of years it was objected to by both labor and it interjects two addition Al parties into collective there used to be just the Union and the in there will be the workers and the we have a nicely balanced Labo management system in this province at the As they if it aint Why fix it says Gonick employers and unions Are justifiably wary of a third party making decisions that the third party Doest have to live unions have never survived on the strength of government one direct Cost to the Union movement is the clause allowing an employer to demand a vote on the part of the work this is bound to weaken unions As it opens a path for employ ers to go Over the unions head to Deal directly with this interferes with the unions jurisdiction to Deal with its objection to final offer selection int limited to the two ideological the reaction of prominent labor lawyers and arbitrators ranges from guarded support to who requested joked like the Dps first contract its Likely to earn me a whole lot of Frances Russell he its bad for collective collective bargaining will cease to be a dynamic process and become highly legalistic and very the which has a five year Sunset gives either a Union or management the right to request a vote of All employees on the imposition of final offer the vote can come either 60 Days before a contract expires or 60 Days after the begin Ning of a strike or if the employees an arbitrator or selector chooses either the managements or the unions con tract since neither Union nor management will know when the other Side might demand a initial bargaining positions will tend to be the Bottom the lawyer he predicts lawyers like himself will get Rich Fin tuning first but the process will be prohibitively expensive for Small unions and he also asks unions to contemplate what could happen under an ant labor govern in a criticism also voiced by he says that by merely changing the panel of selectors and rewriting the the Law could become a Nightmare for the labor what i dont like about final offer Selec Tion is that it creates winners and that not conducive to Labo management final offer he Only has its place when everything else has been settled and Only Money remains outstand Winnipeg labor lawyer and new Democrat Lawrie Cherniack is less i think it could be positive in that it will Stop manage ment and labor from going beyond the both unions and management will be forced to be realistic in their he Doest think it will make fundamental changes in collective its a chess game and All this does is add another player on both Paul who teaches labor economics at the University of is Luke the problem with All forms of arbitration is that they tend to be extremely if either Side puts Forward a bran new that virtually assures the selector wont pick it is useful for narrowing differences on but when it comes to everything else in a Complex labor be promotions and so it can Lead to he speculates that one reason the Manitoba federation of labor wants final offer selection is the nature of Manitoba econ this province is dominated by Small largely in the service final offer like first contract makes it easier for unions to organize Small workplaces where the employees Are usually Low female and frightened of strike these types of employees Are easily victimized by final offer selection makes it much More difficult for employers to break strikes and smash Phillips also notes that final offer selection has been the basis for Labo management relations in Australia and new zealand since the turn of the Century and neither Side wants to see it he says the biggest Winner in final offer selection is the a fact being totally ignored by the protagonists in the current political offer selection protects the the innocent third whose service is disrupted by a strike or another prominent labor who re Quested it is Peculiar that right at the moment when the Public is becoming More and More disenchanted with labor there is such widespread antagonism to trying something doonesbury by Garry Trudeau com quickly jhkou6h consumer electronics 816 is happen ing Over so far to you appearing on think the trin Itron Japan St have Aux can i 6ej to you sort of commotion for a just pennies a ;