Thursday, March 22, 1990

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incentives to make th:m, other than giving companies money to employ people,” Dale said.

“It’s a philosophy that the private sector does it better, and that ifit*’s in the public sector, it’s broken by definition.”

Since the CJS was _ intro- duced, federal spending on train- ing courses in community colleges has decreased by almost $98 mil- lion, from almost $687 million in 1986 to just over $589 million in 1989.

The change has been grad- ual, but Luterbach said the loss of revenue has hurt the colleges. “There’s fewer dollars available to implement the kinds of train- ing programs we think would provide people with credentialed, transferable skills.”

Luterbach added he supports the idea of a training strat- egy, but that the CJS has sev- eral ’shortfalls’. He said colleges should be working more closely with industry to develop train- ing programs which could gradu- ate students with credentials that were widely recognized.

“It’s essential that we have a closer blend between education at the career level and on-the-job training,” he said. But so long as funding to establish training pro- grams drains away from the col- leges, this won’t happen, he said.

EXTREME DIFFERENCES The National Anti-Poverty

Organization interviewed 89 for- mer CJS trainees in twelve com- munities across Canada, mostly on social assistance in 1989.

The report said their sources “faced a daunting array of finan- cial, practical and psychological barriers to entering and complet- ing training programs, then mak- ing the transition to paid employ- ment.”

The first barrier people on social assistance face is actually getting into a training program. CJS programs helped 60,000 so-

cial assistance recipients find jobs

in 1988-89, but there are an esti- mated two million people on so- cial assistance classified as “em- ployable,” in Canada.

The report says most can be- gin a course as soon as they’re selected, but some have to wait more than a year for some courses.

The NAPO survey found “ex- treme differences in the qual- ity of training itself” from well- designed and taught to courses that were “far too shirt to pro- vide any grounding in a sub- ject,” taught by instructors with no practical experience and inad- equate equipment.

-Dale said further privatiza- tion of job training courses would make things worse.

“There are no province-wide standards for private training schools, and CJS has no way of evaluating the training these schools provide,” he said.

“Private training organiza-

The Gem

tions are there to make a buck ~ nothing else. If they can make a buck and train someone they will,” he said. “They’re not in- terested in community responsi- bility.”

Community colleges, Dale said, are set up for the sole pur- pose of serving their community, and are tied to its development.

MEETING NEEDS, NOT QUOTAS

Luterbach said an effective job training program would ad- dress more than just the need for marketable job skills. He criti- cized CJS for being too focussed on technical training.

“Often these programs seem to ignore the basic reasons that keeps an individual from being employed,” he said. “They avoid issues like literacy, social skills and self-esteem.”

Both would like to see some guidelines and regulations for pri- vate training institutes, as well as a standardized system of “creden- tialling,” “so the piece of paper will mean something,” Dale said.

NAPO’s report calls for “thorough evalua- tion mechanisms” and “minimum standards” for training programs that receive federal money. It also said trainees must have more support — daycare, increased liv- ing allowances to name a few — if they are to make it over the bar- riers to entering the labour force in a meaningful way.

YTV science fiction series fascinates faithfui viewer

BY JORDAN FURLONG With the exception of "Star

Trek: The Next Generation," —

serious science-fiction on television is all but extinct. The last attempts at regular sci-fi shows on TV were “Battlestar Galactica" and "Buck Rogers", which died of blown budgets and lousy plots, not to mention com- plete audience apathy for the genre.

At least, that’s how things stand on this side of the Atlantic. However, the BBC continues to produce intelligent, if somewhat offbeat, science fiction for television. And now the same net- work that brought you "Dr. Who" and "The Hitch-Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy" has come out with a new sci-fi series, "Red Dwarf”. If you have a converter or a VCR capable of picking up channel 23 (Youth TV), it’s worth your while to watch this show, while you still can. Two episodes have already

aired, and a third will be broad- cast before this article is printed. "Red Dwarf" is the name of a military starship cruising the solar system in an unspecified fu- ture time. The main characters are Lister, an easygoing slob of a lower-rank engineer with a biting North London accent, and Rim- mer, an uptight, stiff-necked keener engineering officer al- ways ready to report unsanc- tioned behaviour. These two are roommates, and needless to say they don’t hit it off at all. Lister, always the dreamer, secretly buys a cat on one of Jupiter’s moons and keeps it for a pet, planning to someday settle in Fiji where he can raise sheep. Rimmer’s point that Fiji has been volcanically submerged for 300 years is cheer- fully ignored by his roommate. The cat’s presence comes to the attention of the ship’s captain, who summons Lister and orders him to kill the unauthorized life

form or spend the rest of the trip in the time-stasis booth. Lister opts for the second choice, and is locked into a room where time does not pass. Later, the door is opened by Holly, the ship’s con- descending, Nth-generation com- puter, and Lister finds the ship empty. It takes Holly some time to explain to the dull-witted Lister that a radiation shield on the ship failed and the entire crew was turned to dust, and that the com- puter had to wait 3 million years for the radiation to subside before he could let Lister out. Lister-soon finds that he is not in fact alone on the ship. Holly managed to keep_ one crewperson’s image as a holograph, a completely identi- cal, thinking copy of the original person. That person is, of course, Rimmer, who finds that the two still aggravate each other. Lister also finds that after three million years his black cat, which was

STUDENT UNION |

Student Union General Manager Temporary Position — Six Months

Responsible to the Executive for the day to day administration and supervision of the Student Union activities:

In conjunction with VP Finance create budget and manage finances

Student Medical Plan Administrator Purchasing of all supplies Maintenance of Student Union Building

Bar Services

Qualifications

BBA or a combination of education and

related experience. quired for position.

May 28 - Aug 17 Aug 20 - Dec 21

Part time Full time

Vehicle may be re-

$200.00 per week . $350.00 per week

Applications can be picked up at the Student Union Office in the Barn Monday to Friday 9:00am — 4:00pm.

Application deadline Friday March

30/90.

protected from the radiation, has evolved into a human being, an incredibly cool, hip, black in- dividual who dresses to the nines and drinks milk from a bowl. With nothing much else to do, Lister has Holly turn the ship around to Earth so that they can all go back to Fiji. That’s the first episode. The second installment continues the story, as the ship breaks light speed and the charac- ters begin seeing "future echoes", events from the future taking place before them. The third episode airs this Thursday at 10:00.

The show is not big on special effects, but then none of the BBC's sci-fi shows are. It’s fast- paced, off the wall, funny and completely unpredictable. There’s a certain irony in that the only human characters on board are black; Rimmer and Holly are a holograph and a computer. The show was produced a few years

ago, and only 18 episodes were made, in three installments of six.

‘| don’t know if any more have

been produced since then. If you liked "Dr. Who" or the "Hitch- Hiker’s Guide,” you should cer- tainly enjoy "Red Dwarf". And YTV deserves praise for airing these and other shows, some of the best material available on Canadian television today.

RB i AIRE RE RS NI ARE