Introduction

House Joint Resolution No. 97 (appended) established the Joint Subcommittee Studying Vocational-Technical and career Education to study and make recommendations for the improvement of vocational-technical and career education in Virginia. The joint subcommittee limited its study to twelve issues identified during its initial meetings. Three of these issues dealt with career education and nine with vocational-technical education. In an effort to solicit public opinion on each of the twelve issues, a series of four public hearings was held in Fairfax, Norfolk, Richmond and Roanoke. Approximately 1,000 persons attended the four public hearings and more than 135 interested citizens testified. At each of the hearings, people were asked to direct their comments to one or more of the twelve issues. The testimony at the public hearings strongly supported increased emphasis upon vocational-technical and career education.

Recommendations and Discussion

Several alternative recommendations were considered for each of the twelve issues studied by the subcommittee. The subcommittee did not receive the necessary data from the State Department of Education to arrive at recommendations for vocational education issues 3, 4, 5, 7 and 9. The department is therefore requested to gather and analyze the appropriate data for these five issues, prepare a study report and submit it to the subcommittee or the House Committee on Education, if this subcommittee is not continued, by October 15, 1981. Therefore, a resolution will be introduced in the upcoming session to extend this subcommittee for the sole purpose of receiving this report and developing appropriate recommendations for issues 3, 4, 5, 7, and 9. Following is a list of the issues and the resulting recommendations.