View report page

22.
group tuition can education to any reasonable standard proceed
in circumstances such as these. One of us has referred elsewhere
to Special Schools as 'necessary evils'. That they are,
and will continue to be, necessary, is clear but they are
evils only in so far as they fail to provide their pupils
with the opportunities for full educational and social development
which would be offered by a normal school.
GEOFFREY POOLE and G.M. WILLIAMS
EMPLOYMENT OF HANDICAPPED PUPILS
Mr. Arthur Harvey, Youth Employment Officer, has kindly
contributed the following observations on the employment of
handicapped pupils.
When considering handicapped young people, the Youth
Employment Service personnel, while conscious of their
responsibility for the vocational guidance and successful
placement in employment, are also aware of their own limitations
They are not specialists, trained to recognise the
limitations of the physically, mentally or emotionally
handicapped, and must, therefore, rely upon the specialists
for a detailed assessment of the abilities and needs of the
individual concerned, and use their own knowledge to
interpret this in terms of the employment situation.
Two problems emerge; Firstly, the large number of
specialists, who may have a legitimate interest in the young
persons, plus a number of others who may be self appointed.
It is no exaggeration to say that in many cases there could
be a dozen such professional and voluntary, social and welfare
organisations (each passing the buck?). Where do the
specialists draw their line? Where can they co-operate? Where
do they overlap? How often does each feel the other is overstepping
the mark? Secondly, the Youth Employment Service
personnel have unrivalled experience of placing normal' young
people in normal employment - and that s a difficult enough
specialism with heavy case loads, when one reflects on the
many other duties - but in many cases of handicapped young
people the employment has to be devised to suit the individual
and an employer found who is prepared to do so. How often one
hears the words employers are not in business as a charitable
organisation !
When all the resources of specialists have been called
upon, it is still the responsibility of the Service to find
or create, employment for the young person, and to follow