The National System of Vocational Guidance
| Date | 01 January 1934 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9299.1934.tb02366.x |
| Published date | 01 January 1934 |
| Author | F. N. Tribe |
The National System
of
Vocational
Guidance
By
F.
N.
TRIBE,
C.B.E.,
M.A.
[Being
an
address
given to the Institute
of
Public Administration,
November,
19331
OCATIONAL GUIDANCE
”
is a comparatively modern term,
‘‘V
which
is
still to
a
large extent unfamiliar in this country.
It
means advice or guidance on choice of career or employment, and
is
usually, though not necessarily, given about the time when boys
and girls
or
young persons are due to terminate their whole-time
education and enter the larger world
of
industry or commerce. One
hears and reads much about systems of vocational guidance in other
countries, but the average citizen of this country knows very little
about the system in operation here. Yet it is a system which inti-
mately affects the young life of our country. Under
it
individual
advice on choice of employment is given annually by qualified persons
to over
a
quarter
of
a
million
boys
and girls. A student from over-
seas, who had spent
a
year studying the methods of vocational
guidance in different countries, told me not long ago that he had
come to the conclusion that the British system was probably
the
best in the world.
The object of this address
is
to give some account of that system
and
of
how
it
works.
I
shall deal primarily with questions of
administration and shall assume an appreciation
of
the importance
of
the work. It must be obvious to anyone who gives the question
a
moment’s thought that the misfit in industry or commerce is an
individual tragedy; multiplied many times he represents
a
vast
accumulation
of
wasted material and of potential unrest.
I
shall deal primarily with the system in operation in England
and Wales. There are minor variations in Scotland, but it is perhaps
hardly necessary to describe these.
History
In the course of the address which
Mr.
Baldwin delivered to the
Institute
four
weeks ago, he pointed out how our system
of
public
administration had been dominated
for
centuries
by
our
intense indi-
20
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