THE SECONDARY SCHOOL ENVIRONMENT

The Secondary School Environment



The Secondary School Environment

School-To-Work Strategies

The schools to work strategies are aimed at making the transition of students from school to work easy for them. This phase is a very critical part of the life of students. The students partially work for substantial amount of money in this phase. The strategies focus to provide students with career guidance. The counseling services are provided to students. Their work records are tracked and monitored and a pathway is drafted for the career development of every student. Schools as well as businesses are engaged in the activity to develop and implement the most appropriate School-To-Work Strategies.

Empowerment of Local Partnerships

Schools as well as the business community must take active part in the process of developing and implementing the career policies for students. The students and their families must also be involved in the process. The partnership structure and goals must be clearly defined. This would be very beneficial for schools as well as business community to determine the expectations and outcomes. This would also help to solve the problems and to formulate the best practices. The partnership between the educational institutions and the industry must develop flexible processes that cater the needs of the local community. The bonding between the local partners must be strong enough to achieve the long term goals of youth development. The active participation of all the stakeholders plays a key role (Bailey & Merritt, 1993).

There must be open communication at local, regional as well as state level. This would help the stakeholders to be at the similar level of perception. Otherwise there is a possibility that a barrier that is actually at the local level might be considered to be a state level barrier by the local partners. There must be very careful policy regarding financial incentives. It is very useful to start funding a local partnership, however it must be clearly defined that what the limit of such funding is. It is the responsibility of the local partnership to become self sufficient for the activities and changes they plan to carry out. It is very essential that the marketing of the project activities and the successful events is done effectively. The students must get the message clearly that the grant would end. In that manner the teams would be able to make great changes that last long. They would also focus on making the most of the existing systems as well as making suitable enhancements to the existing systems (Armstrong, 1988).

 

Paradigm Shifts

They system can only be changed when there is ownership at every level. The change happens when the perception of conventional thinking is shifted to modern ways. Only such change is long lasting. The problems surrounding the transition phase must be recognized and resolved. The language of the communication must be simple rather than technical. The benefits of teamwork must be availed in the form of increased efficiency and elimination of duplication.

Involve students and parents in the development of a common ...