The paper will try to clarify foreign trends in Technical/Vocational Education and training. The paper consists of three parts: 1. Identification of Education Reform and Technological Education in general education in the United States of America, United Kingdom and other countries. 2. Discussions on the relationship between economies and education, especially Vocational Technical Education and Training (VOTEC) in OECD countries. 3. A report on human development and education, including VOTEC in a developing country. In 1983, in the USA education reform aimed to increase the level of human power in order to overcome in international economic competition. In the case of technological education, American Industrial Arts Association (AIAA) /International Technology Education Association (ITEA) have been instrumental in leadership and reforming technological educational programs. Contents of the IA educational program changed from many kinds of learning to concentrating on four main industries; manufacturing, power/energy/transportation, construction, and communication. In 1990's ITEA's main goal was "Technology for all American" and it developed a new program (taught in k to 12) titled "Standards for Technological Literacy". The focus being 3areas; physical system, bio-system, and information system. In 1988, United Kingdom promulgated the Educational Reform Act. The act stress nationwide common core standards "National Curriculum" and set up 4 Key Stage's Evaluation of learning. Concerning technological education, basic subject "Technology" required from 5 years old to 16 years old students. Time allocation standard of schooling in KS1-KS3 is 10%, in Key Stage is 5, and in KS4 independent subject Information Technology prepared. Most of developed countries, students required technological subjects from primary to upper secondary schools except Japan. The main themes of discussion between economy and education were divided into 4 groups: a. The relation between youth unemployment and VOTEC, b. The institutional reform of VOTEC and open pathway, c. The mismatch between expected competency of workers and VOTEC, and d. Human power development policies. The rate of youth unemployment was highly related to the economic condition of member countries, rate of enrollment of secondary schools, and rate of science/technology course students in higher education. There are several institutional types of VOTE in Anglo-Saxon countries, northern Europe countries, etc. OECD's meeting on VOTE stressed integrated policies to promote trainability and employability of youth. I visited 54 schools/institutions and observed 270 over classes. I received questionairs on science/technological education and co-education from the teachers. Most of the teachers agreed on emphasizing a science/technological education, however, most of schools gave up technological education due to budge constraints. Actually, the biggest problem is the preparation of well balanced teachers. Developed countries especially Japan, donate much money to developing countries. Unfortunetly, most of monies are spent on the construction of schools and equipment leaving little mony for the preparation of teachers. Even though literacy education need to be competent in the teaching of technology so developing countries have proper teaching materials and skills for daily life.

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There are currently twenty seven laws governing the licensing of professionals in the medical and welfare professions, each law defining a category of medical and welfare professional. Some of these laws, specifically those covering medical practitioners, midwives and dentists were enacted as far back as July 30th 1948. It has become apparent that specialization within the medical and welfare fields is increasing under the continuing pressure of medical advance, requiring modifications of, and clarification and extensions in fields of responsibility, job titles and job descriptions. We examined the methods by which regulations covering the scope and job descriptions of two licenses, those for medical technologist and medical test technicians, were arrived at by the interested parties. It became clear that when the law pertaining to the medical test technicians and medical technologist license were decided the technicians faced strong pressure from the Japan Pharmaceutical Association, Japan Society of Clinical Pathology and the Japan Medical Association who were all intent on limiting it in scope and range as far as was possible. Such legal limitation expressed in the license lead directly to limitations in the range of responsibilities and duties the profession was allowed to shoulder. As a result of these legal limitations the profession of medical technologist was weakened. The situation has not changed significantly in recent year. However, as the specialization of each medical area increases and medical technology advances, these legal limitations have lead to numerous discrepancies. Moreover, increasingly a wider ranging education in what might be termed "human skills" covering, for example bio-ethics, communication skills and the like, is being required in addition to the technical demands of the specialty itself. This indicates the necessity of a system allowing for practitioners wider educational development as medical professionals.

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Since early 1990s, the United States has developed the "tech prep" (technical preparation) program, which aims to combine the occupationally oriented education of high school, and postsecondary vocational education. This paper aims to analyze and point out some characteristics of the tech prep curriculum, and discuss the "articulation" problems between the high school and the postsecondary institutions, such as community colleges. The contents of this paper are as follows; 1. In the early 1980s, the national reports on educational reform, e. g. A Nation at Risk (1983), by the National Commission on Excellence in Education, recommended to increase the number of units of academic subjects, such as English, mathematics, science, and social studies in the high school graduation requirements. But the trend of the arguments on educational reform changed in the early 1990s. There emerged the demands for workforce with higher skills as well as higher academic achievements, and the need of the "integration" of academic and vocational education was emphasized. Tech prep was one of the approaches to the implementation of such "integration". It aimed to provide the workforce with higher technical skills in the era of the high technology and the world competition in economy. The Carl Perkins Vocational and Applied Technology Education Act of 1990 was the first federal legislation to recognize and support the tech prep. 2. The Curriculum of tech prep programs, especially the high school level, usually includes (1) applied academics, e. g. applied math or applied science, and (2)vocational and technical education. They were expected to build the basis of the postsecondary vocational education at community colleges or technical institutes. Besides that, the School-to-Work Act (1994) made the work-based-learning an important part of the program. 3. The analysis on the example of "Central State Education-to-Careers Consortium" gives us some ideas on how much the original purposes of the tech prep program have been fulfilled. In that consortium, most of the vocational and technical subjects are provided at the "area vocational center" independent from high schools, as, the same as previous "vocational education" programs. Applied academics, such as "applied math" or "applied science", are not required for graduation of this program. Although some work-based-learning activities, e. g. "job shadowing" and "cooperative Education" are given, quite few students are enrolling the "youth apprenticeship", the most well organized this kind of activity. These facts make us have some doubts about the degree of the fulfillment of original purposes of tech prep.

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The first business school in modern Japanese educational system was established in 1875 in Tokyo. This school was called "Shoho-Koshusho", the curriculum of which had a distinct characteristics as class for business activities training called "Business practice". This subject consisted of two courses, "Lecture" course and "Practice" course, and the latter course had to be taken in the higher grade after having mastered the former course in the lower grade. "Prctice" class was done in the special classroom called "Jissen-room", which should have been equipped in all business schools by the "Business schools Law" in 1899. This subject had contents of knowledges and skills about all business activities, from book-keeping to banking, transportation, warehouse and correspondense. Business school had been developed through the period of Meiji, Ttaisho, Showa Era. "Business Practice" had been the essential subject of business school curriculum, having formed characteristics as synthetic subject which should be learned in the higher grade after learning basic learning such as book-keepig, business-correspondence, commerce and economics in the lower grade at business school. Its core containied business activitiy training useful for the business.

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[in Japanese]

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