Harvard Sets Up Teen-Age Job Training

Harvard's Student Employment Office will begin next week a program of job training for Cambridge high school students and teen-agers.

The $6000 project, called Teen-age Employment Skills Training, (TEST), will be sponsored jointly by Harvard, the businessmen. A pilot program, financed Cambridge Rotary, and individual local by a $1000 Rotary grant, will start April 27 as preparation for a major drive next Fall.

The initial aim of TEST will be to enable high school students to land better-paying summer and term-time jobs, particularly to help increase their savings for college, according to Jon W. Clifton '63, who is helping to organize TEST. Eventually, the project hopes to include aiding high-school drop-outs, he added. Charles P. Whitlock, assistant to the President for Civic Affairs, originally suggested establishing TEST, and has been important in the early stages of organization.

The core of the pilot project this sum-the teen-ager an edge in finding a job," mer will be a set of skill courses to "give Clifton said. Courses in small appliance repair, office machines and practices, lawn and child care, and consumer selling will be included in the curriculum. TEST will also set up a labor pool to serve as an "embryonic" employment agency, Clifton said.

Will offer Business Course

If enough students qualify, TEST also plans to give a small course in business management. Behind the plan is a hope that these students would help run the program next fall and perhaps organize a student business agency like the one at Harvard, Clifton explained.

For the full program next Fall, TEST organizers plan to intensify the instruction to include more full-time job courses, such as key-punch operating and typing. The labor pool will be expanded to include more job placement, with the aim of providing employment services for high-school drop-outs, as well as continning students.

TEST may also offer a course on such fine points as presentability.