Much of these recommendations actually paraphrases suggestions made by Christine Blakers, although it is unfortunate that she seems to give little space to the role played by the teacher unions, in Victoria and elsewhere, and their possible relevance in either designing new career education curricula or forming a political pressure group to assist those who are unemployed. It is also a weakness in that she gives little consideration to unemployment among teachers themselves. This has arisen partly because of the failure of the Government to grant the sums of money recommended by the Schools Commission. The immediate problem is not so much a ‘teacher glut’ as a shortfall of funds. But hard times are ahead for teaching. Apart from the general downturn in the economy, demographic trends are towards a reduction of birth rates, necessitating fewer teachers and further restricting employment opportunities. The current ‘Back to Basics’ movement puts more pressure on teachers to ‘produce’, and it is possible that an ‘accountability’ movement, as exists in the United States, could impose yet greater demands.

Christine Blakers says, and rightly, that the ‘Back to Basics’ movement may not be the main issue in education. Indeed, complaints about alleged reduced standards predate the rise of any ‘progressive’ teaching methods, and there is no statistical evidence to substantiate claims of falling standards, whatever definition is given to the word ‘standards’.

In fact, evidence on present levels of adult illiteracy and inadequacy in basic living skills would seem to indicate that the problems are not new ones. What is new is community awareness of them. And this is heightened by the fact that technological and social changes have brought with them the need for more competence in a whole range of basic living skills. The motor mechanic of twenty or thirty years ago could get by with word-of-mouth on-the-job instruction, observation and practice. Today he needs to be able to read and comprehend complex instruction manuals if he is to cope with a rapidly changing variety of highly sophisticated pieces of engineering … the schools have not been quick enough to recognise increased needs and to cater for them, but their reactions have been no slower than those of the community itself. And it should not be overlooked that the job applicants and emerging graduates of the past five years, against whom the complaints are in the main being made, were in fact victims of the educational deprivation of the 1960s, for whom the community itself must accept fair responsibility.

(pp. 45/6)  

The failure of a complete link between school and work, therefore, is not one for which the schools can alone be blamed. There has been an unwillingness to face up to the fact, also, that fewer people are willing to accept menial employment. This means, paradoxically, that if the schools succeed in producing self-motivated, self-confident and creative individuals, they may find little scope for their talents in work, and become bored or rebellious, as they question the patterns of automatic obedience required for bureaucracy and business.

Part of the solution, therefore, is to reduce the authoritarian and bureaucratic management style and to initiate systems giving the individual more freedom and more scope for initiative. Some management theorists feel that industrialism must be superseded by Post industrialism.

Career education in the schools has come under attack for limiting students to vocational training, and fitting into outdated structures by inviting students to limit their aspirations. As Ms Blakers adds, the academic bias of education is unsuited to the talents of large numbers of students, especially those of working class origin. A minority rise to the top by climbing over the top of those less academically oriented.

Thus both career education and work experience must, she feels, be flexible enough to prepare for a changing society and a variety of types of work. She is pessimistic enough to believe that career education will be added as just another subject, instead of a central one, and that it will merely adjust to existing industry, instead of generating new and better work values. As a first stage, Ms Blakers suggests a national investigation into career education hosted by the Curriculum Development Centre, bringing into it submission from teachers, community and employment bodies.

She does not see a stage beyond this. But it is entirely possible that the days of full employment are over, and unemployment may be a lasting feature of a capitalist economy. If this is so, it may eventually be necessary to pay those unemployed to become consumers of goods, to keep the economy going. In the meantime, it becomes ever-more important to pool existing resources and devise ways and means that will lessen the burden of unemployment, with its threat to the well-being of the community and implied stigma for the individual. Ms Blakers’ book is well-researched, comprehensive and readable, providing a good starting point for prognosis and diagnosis. It is up to government, educational and union bodies to act in concert to find the light at the end of the economic tunnel.