Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
ability to pay.”
109
Instructors were also compensated on a pay-as-you-go
basis, which encouraged them to retain even the least competent of their
students. Some of these instructors were working programmers moon-
lighting for additional cash, but given the overall shortage of experienced
programmers in this period, most had little, if any, industry experience.
Some had only the training that they had received as students in the very
programs in which they were now serving as instructors.
Since these schools had an interest in recruiting as many students
as possible, they made wide use of aptitude testing. Most included
watered-down versions of IBM PAT in their marketing brochures,
although a few offered coupons for independent testing bureaus. The
version of PAT that many schools relied on was graded differently from
the standardized test. A student could receive a passing grade after
answering as few as 50 percent of the questions correctly, and a grade
of A required only a score of 70 percent. The scores on these entrance
examinations was basically irrelevant, with C and D students frequently
receiving admission, but graduating students were required take the full
version of PAT. Only the top-scoring students were passed on to employ-
ment agencies, thereby boosting the school's claims about placement
records.
110
There were some vocational training programs that were legitimate.
The Chicago-based Automation Institute, for example—sponsored by
the Council for Economic and Industrial Research (itself largely spon-
sored by the computer manufacturer Control Data Corporation)—main-
tained relatively strict standards in its nationwide chain of franchises. In
1967, the Automation Institute became the fi rst EDP school to be accred-
ited by the Accrediting Commission for Business Schools. There were
also programs offered by community colleges and junior colleges (and
even some high schools) that at least attempted to provide substantial
EDP training. The more legitimate schools oriented their curricula toward
the requirements of industry. But the requirements of the industry were
poorly understood or articulated, and vocational schools suffered from
many of the same problems that plagued industry personnel managers:
a shortage of experienced instructors, the lack of established standards
and curricula, and general uncertainty about what skills and aptitudes
made for a qualifi ed programmer. For the most part, the conditions at
most vocational EDP schools was so scandalous that by the end of the
decade many companies imposed strict “no EDP school graduate” poli-
cies.
111
A 1970 report by an ACM ad-hoc committee on private EDP
schools confi rmed this reluctance on the part of employers and concluded
