PAGE 4, WEDNESDAY, MARCH 9. 1983, WHITBY FREE PRESS whitby Voice of the County Town1 The only Whitby newspaper independently own [ Put Michael lan Burgess, Publisher • Managing Editor ned and aneatpda v Whit.. ..a- ,-..i. «ma------j .mnc u Vynuy resm nts sVVOwityresidelts. )Iished every Wednesday by M.B.M. Publishing and Photography Inc. Phone 668-61 Il The Free Press Building, 131 Brock Street North, P.O. Box 206, Whitby, Ont. P.O. Box 206, Whitby, Ont. Registration No. 5351 LESLIE BUTLER Community Editor ELIZABETH NOZDRYN Advertising Manager Second Class Mail Registration No. 5351 Education is still a desirable necessity The Durham Board of Education last week re- ieased Information on alternativegeducation programs for students between the ages 0f 14 and 16 who want to'drop out of sohool. Students who are frustrated, uninterested and turned off sohool can apply to work part-tImne or full-time under the supervision of guidance coun- sellors. The type of program varies with the students' needs, but the emphasis is on preparing these stu- dents for the working world and helping them find jobs. ln the relatively few years this program has been available, teachers have found many studen- ts return to school with renewed interest after they get a taste of unemployment, limited job op- A friend gave me a book recently thatI1'missed somehow when it was published in 1969. lt's called "'PRIME TIME: THE LIFE 0F EDWARD R. MURROW," by one of Murrow's friends and colleagues, Alexander Kendrick. I picked it up one night at bedtimne, read for awhile and then put out the light. I tossed and turned for a long time and finally grabbed the book and a cigar and went downstairs to have another run at it. To say that I was shaken by what I read is putting it mildly. For the first time, perhaps, i realized how much ground we've lost in televsion since Murrow died, particularly in the area of hard political and social còmment. It's probably just as well I didn't read the book in 1969. I hadn't spent 15 years in broadcasting then and I would probably not have understood everything that Murrow and his biographer were worried about. Now I find that my con- cems were theirs and that they're searing my vitals. Since Murrow, information programming in the United States has become soft, bland, and mushy. Without pur- pose, beyond entertainment, there is no substance. Despite PBS in the United States and the CBC in Canada, North American television on the whole, mass television, has become increasingly insubstantial. The medium is becoming the message, a concept that Murrow fought. It isn't the pipeline that's important; it's what it carres. Carried a step further, it isn't the half-witted anchorman who is important, it's the news itself. No wonder Mur- row stayed away from television news. Within our pre- sent 30 and 60 minute formats, with relatively modest resources, we can only struggle to keep ahead of the leaks and stay afloat; and never, for a moment, in- vestigate what's going on in the mile of ocean that lies under us. Too often, we distort through compression, we get it wrong, and we fail to put it in context. But outside of the news, with few exceptions, there is only entertainment. Just for a moment, measure the televi- sion we're getting against the television E.B. White once envisaged: "I think TV should be the visual counterpart of the literay essay, should arouse our dreams, satisfy our hunger for beauty, take us on journeys, enable us to participate in events, present great drama and music, explore the sea and the sky and the woods and the hills.. . . It should restate and clarify the social dilemma and the political pickle. Once in a while it does, and you get a quick glimpse of its potential." What we're get- ting instead of White's vision, is Pay TV and the pro- mise of fleeting frontal nudity; a quick glimpse not of television's potential but of something rather more commonplace. portunities and poor pay. There has been, in recent years, a public mis- conception that high levels of educatlon are less valuable -In getting a Job, maintaining it and receiving decent wages. It's a misconception because census figures released iast week by Statistlcs Canada show there is a direct relation- shipbetween level of education and rate of em- ployment. Between 1971 and 1981, the dates of the last federal census, 80 per cent of adult Canadians at- tended high school. Seventy per cent of aIl Cana- dians achieved an education level somewhere be- tween Grades 9 and 13. Only 10 per cent had post- secondary education. The unemployment rate among those with at least some post secondary education was three per cent, compared to the current national aver- age of 12.5 per cent. In addition, the number of people who gra- duated from college or university -went from 700,000 to 1.4 million in the last decade. University and college aren't for everyone, but itis a bad argument to suggest post secondary education doesn't help people get Jobs. Finishing high school also increases young people's chan- ces of findlng employment.ut The Durham Board 0f Education has used good sense in providing students with the opportunity to see what the "real" world is all about. The alternative education program gets the students out of what is a bad situation, and allows him or her to get first hand experlence of what it's like to fnd work as an untralned, uneducated and under- age worker. That many students willingly return to school bears witness to the program's success. Once back in school by their own choice, the students will be more able and willing to work at finishing hîgh schooi. Even if they don't return to school, the two years spent working under thetsupervision of their teachers will heip students set higher goals for themselves. The board offers lifehskIlls programs which teach students budgeting, how to find a job and how to keep it. To force a student who can't cope with school to put in time until he can quit at age 16 doesn't solve any of his problems. He'll simply skip classes, disrupt classrooms that he is in, or become thoroughly frustrated and permanently turned off school. To give him a little rope to play with while he figures out his future could prevent him from making decisions he'Il later regret. It should be the goal of all governments and citizens to raise the level of education of all mem- bers of society. By providing young students with the means of making educated decisions about their future, the Durham Board of Educationhas shown dedication to helping young people where they need it most. they need it most. 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