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Students' enrolments on many types of schools and at all levels of education have increased, over the past years at a very high rate. With high birthrate, there is high demand for education at high school and colleges, thus making civic officials, social agencies and educators in every town and state to struggle to solve the many problems that rapid growth rates has created.
At secondary level, there was and there is a substantial increase of students who have enrolled for business subjects. Some states such as California, Michigan, Texas, Fluoride and New York have moved rapidly in providing publicly supported community colleges which make post-secondary education available to thousands of youth who cannot be accommodated in the four-year institutions or who for one reason or another do not wish to pursue a full four years of education beyond high schools. These two years colleges offers terminal programs or provide the academic background that permit those students who wish to do so to transfer to a four-year college.
The collegiate enrolment has consistently grown over the year. These continuing and growing interest in the study of business at both the undergraduate and the graduate levels of higher education indicate the importance the people have placed on business education.
Need for Qualified Business Teachers
Due to the demand for business education, well-qualified business teachers who meet the state's certification requirement appear to be in demand always. With the high school student population growing at rapid pace and with increasing number of students electing, business subjects, it appears that there will be no shortages of jobs for those qualified to teach business subjects.
Over the last two decades of the 20th century there has been less than two thirds of the teacher a graduate teaching in the following year. This is because many had accepted gainful employment in business world as well as for teaching. In addition, many young women who had prepared to become teachers opt to get married and established homes rather than becoming teachers.
A note should be taken that business education rates among the lowest subjects’ fields in terms of the percentages of its graduates who actually enter teaching; and it is one of the highest in terms of percent of its graduates who enter other types of gainful employment.
To these reasons, it appears that there will be shortage of well-prepared business teachers for some time. Many vacancies have been filled around the nation and are continuing to be filled by poorly prepared teachers. This then demands that teachers should join with other interested groups in encouraging students to prepare for the business teaching profession.
ENCOURAGING YOUTH TO TEACH
In order to solve the problems of shortages of business teacher, then in schools where business teacher education and secretarial administration are in the same department, capable secretarial majors should be informed of the opportunities in teaching and be encouraged to prepare for business teaching and secretarial work at the same time. Other measures to be taken includes:-
i) Students in the others areas of business administration should be informed about opportunities for teaching at various educational levels.
ii) Business teacher in the local schools should be encouraged to inform their students of the advantages of the business teaching profession.
iii) Business educators who appear in high school career day programs should take the opportunity to provide information on the teaching profession.
iv) Student teaching must be made on interesting and profitable experience so that the capable student who is still undecided about the career will give more consideration to selecting business teaching over positions to business and industry.
v) Cooperating teacher should be selected in the high school since they will have a considerable influence on the student's choice of the career.
In conclusion then, securing capable students to prepare for business teaching presents a real challenge to college and universities engaged in preparing business teachers and provide a fine opportunity for service to the business teaching profession.
NEW DEVELOPMENTS AND BUSINESS EDUCATION
Due to rapid advancement in science and technology, educators have been forced to update their curriculum and teaching methods and to re-organize their subject contents. This current development has also affected business education in many ways such as:
i. Renewed interest in vocational education by the federal Government; various acts were passed mainly to provide training for the unemployed and to those whose skills needed to be upgraded in order to meet shifting employment needs. Thus training in business knowledge’s and skills could be and were included under those acts.
ii. Automation:
In this case, men have been replaced by self-directing mechanisms. Many office operations which formerly required many clerks, bookkeepers and machine operations many hours to perform can now be accomplished in a matter of minutes. The advent of electronic data processing and the computer has brought about revolutionary changes in the offices, providing accurate and timely information within seconds.
Due to expansion of automation then the trend will be towards hiring persons with more education to handle the computers. This will make the older workers to be attending classes along with young workers in order to meet the requirements of the new office occupations which has been brought by automation. Such New occupation includes systems analyst, programmers, tape librarian, data typist project planner etc.
Other factor affecting occupational change includes: -
A) Sociological and economic forces such as early retirement, which will make more jobs to be available. The changes in jobs made necessary by occupational change may result in a constantly shifting population.
B) Increase in the number of women who are working or who plan to work. This has been as a result of increase in divorce rate and the demand for constantly higher living standards, more women are entering the labour market either to support them or to add to the family income.
(iii) Meeting the needs of students
In order to meet the needs of the students, economic conditions, automation of the office, scientific management and improved office procedures will require continuous evaluation in business education.
For the business education to fulfill the above needs, it must make full use of the community as a laboratory for business in training.
Field trips to the local offices and part-time work experience must be an integral part of the program of each student.
Every effort must be made to keep track of the charges in business so as to provide the students with necessary knowledge and skills for initial employment. The program must also be sufficiently broad in scope to provide training that will enable the worker to move from one job to another within a given occupational classification as the needs of business changes.
Titany answered the question on December 15, 2021 at 09:04