Author Description

This document offers guidelines for providers of continuing education that are the result of a British project at Sandown College, Liverpool, England, designed to develop, pilot, and evaluate a program that would enable a greater percentage of unemployed blacks to gain entry to specific vocational programs. (Those programs were electronics and electrical engineering; music, dance and drama; and health studies and child care.) The following guidelines are among those presented: (1) base the design of vocational curricula on the basic skills and culture of black people; (2) ensure that the course relates to work opportunities; (3) counter racial discrimination in the workplace and college; (4) select black students on potential rather than focusing on existing attainments; (5) consult and develop links with black and ethnic community agencies involved in education and training; (6) deploy black lecturers whenever possible; (7) involve senior college management in supporting antiracism in the college; (8) contact students who fail to complete a course with a view to planning alternative routes; (9) establish review mechanisms for flexible learning opportunities involving outreach, community initiatives, and cooperation between agencies in the black community; and (10) find means of accrediting prior experience and learning that relate to the experience of being black. (CML)