and individual careers. IS CAREER EDUCATION STILL RELEVANT TODAY?In many respects, career education has never been needed more than it is today. The ever-fasterpace of technological change and the increased competitiveness of workplaces and economiesaround the globe have challenged the nation's ability to maintain the world's highest standard of living.According to the Secretary's Commission on Achieving Necessary Skills (SCANS 1991), a strongback, eager hands, and a high school diploma used to be enough to get a job, keep it, and make itinto a career. No more--now the need to keep abreast of technological change and to participateeffectively in today's high-performance workplace require each worker to possess a set of basiccompetencies and a foundation of skills and personal qualities (ibid., p. vii):Basic competency areas: * Resources--allocating time, money, materials, space, and staff * Interpersonal skills--working on teams, teaching others, serving customers, leading, negotiating,and working well with people from culturally diverse backgrounds * Information--acquiring and evaluating data, organizing and maintaining files, interpreting andcommunicating, and using computers to process information * Systems--understanding social, organizational, and technological systems; monitoring andcorrecting performance; and designing or improving systems * Technology--selecting equipment and tools, applying technology to specific tasks, andmaintaining and troubleshooting technologiesFoundation skills and qualities: * Basic skills--reading, writing, mathematics, speaking, and listening * Thinking skills--thinking creatively, making decisions, solving problems, knowing how to learn,and reasoning * Personal qualities--responsibility, self-esteem, sociability, self-management, and integrityA further SCANS report (1992) spells out the implications for educators who wish to provide theirstudents with such competencies and fo...
