a major vulnerable point in institutionalized training provision, and in particular, school-Lased training. It is a problem that can be overcome, as the Middle Eastern examples cited by World Bank (1986) show. But when conditions are less favorable, it is a powerful reason for confining schoolbased training to generic technical education for which the linkage issue is less important since it is less directly related to the labor market than jobreadiness training. As Herschbach (1985) observes, "organizing formal programs to provide more generic training, coupled with available short-term training at the work site, is not a new idea. It is one that has been advocatud for at least two decades by program planners, but it is an idea given little attention in discussions about formal vocational programs and lack of linkage between supply and demand."

# Adaptabilitv and innovation

Schools are notoriously resistant to change. Partly this seems to be an inherent characteristic of formal education. The explanation of Shah, Prakasha and Nischol (1986) of the resistance to the vocationalization of secondary education in India puts it well: "the point must be made that despite more than 50 years of intense lobbying, this particular school reform to make manual activity a regular part of the school programme has not struck root with the result that in most of our schools, there is hardly any proper provision for well-planned serious practical work today (society) may be, we must not forget that schools are devices essentially to preserve and perpetuate the culture of a society, and not for creating a new social order; as instruments of change, they are too slow and ill-adapted for such a complex and gargantuan responsibility." Partly also the resistance to change is attributable to their mode of operation. As McCulloch, Jenkins and Layton (1985) observe, "university requirements, examination syllabuses, teacher training, textbooks and equipment are all bases of negative feedback loops operating against change". And in addition to the negative feedback, there are rigidities not found in other forms of training. The lengths of courses are determined by the lockstep of the school year, rather than by actual training needs, and the school setting impedes the modularization and individualization of training.

In view of the widespread consensus that, from this point of view at least, the role of the schools should be confined to general education, the Evaldo Lodi technical school in Rio de Janeiro, described by de Oliveira (1988), merits especial attention. The school dates from 1971, enrolls about 3,000 students per year and its present arrangements are now well-established. There are no classrooms and the teachers, who work two four-hour shifts (the same as in conventional technical schools in Brazil), supervise students individually. Teachers have maximum student-loads, but the identities of their students will change as some drop-out and their places are offered to others. Theoretical instruction is received from worksheets adapted for individualized instruction and supplemented by guidance from the teacher; similarly shopwork and laboratory work is undertaken on an individual basis within prescribed hours with background supervision.

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