Request By:
Mr. G. Kenneth Martin
The Dale Carnegie Courses
3715 Bardstown Road
Louisville, Kentucky 40218
Opinion
Opinion By: Robert F. Stephens, Attorney General; By: C. David Clauss, Assistant Attorney General
Your letter of July 3, 1979, addressed to this office, has been referred to me for comment.
Your letter describes an educational course of generalized "self-improvement and motivational training" which is taught through Ken Martin Associates, Inc., the course being designed to develop one's self-confidence and to improve one's success in interpersonal relationships. You further summarize the educational objectives in terms of self-confidence in speaking, increased ability to get along with others, increased ability to communicate in an orderly and persuasive manner, and increased ability to enjoy life.
You have inquired whether a course of study similar to the course described in your letter comes within Chapter 165A of the Kentucky Revised Statutes so as to require both the course and the agents of the course to be licensed by the Kentucky Board of Proprietary Education (hereinafter, the Board).
For the reasons hereinafter set forth, the opinion of this office is that such a course and its agents need not hold licenses from the Board.
Those institutions required by KRS 165A to be licensed are those educational institutions "privately owned and operated by an individual, partnership, association or corporation offering training in business, trade, technical, industrial or related areas through residence, extension or correspondence for which tuition is charged." KRS 165A.310(1).
The course described in your letter appears to be an "educational institution privately owned . . . by a corporation;" and, although your letter does not so state, we assume that students of the course pay tuition. Thus, if such a course as you have described is to be excluded from KRS 165A. 310(1), it will have to be because of the nature of the course of study itself. If the course of study provides "training in business, trade, technical, industrial or related areas," the course will, absent some other exemption, fall within KRS 165A.310(1).
Despite a thorough search we have not found any definition in KRS 165A, or in the case law of the Commonwealth, of terms such as "business school," "trade school," or "vocational school," as used in KRS 165A.310(1), in order to guide us in our decision. Accordingly we have turned elsewhere.
Under Jones v. United States, 387 F.2d 909 (5th Cir. 1968), Employer's Liability Assur. Corporation v. Accident and Casualty Ins. Co. of Winterthur, Switzerland, 134 F.2d 566 (6th Cir. 1943), Maniscalo v. Glass, 163 So.2d 438 (1964), Tucker v. Jollay, 311 S.W.2d 324 (1957), and Steinbeck v. Gerosa, 151 N.E.2d 170 (1958), we see that "vocation" has been construed to mean one's regular business, an occupation which one pursues for the purpose of making a living, or the business, occupation or activity from which one earns his living. The foregoing definitions will be reinforced by reference to any dictionary of the English language.
Accordingly, the course you have described in your letter, which can realistically be described as nothing more than a course in general self-improvement and motivational training cannot reasonably be said to fall within KRS 165A.310(1).
The described course is certainly not related to industry, trade, technology, or business, as such, and although benefits which a student might derive from such a course may affect his abilities to perform a vocation in areas related to industry, trade, business, or technology, such a benefit would appear to be merely tangential to the general, more substantial, benefits of self-improvement derived from such a course.
Our conclusion is reinforced by reference to KRS 165A.310(5)(c) and (e), respectively. Subsection (5)(e) excludes barber schools, beautician schools, nursing schools, and embalming schools from licensing by the Board. The purpose for the exclusion of such organizations appears to be to eliminate any duplication of state regulation, for, but for the exclusion, the excluded kinds of schools would be, arguably, included in KRS 165A.310(1). Nonetheless, from subsection (5)(e), we can see primary examples of the kinds of schools intended to be covered by KRS 165A. Schools which teach skills useful in, and intended to be used primarily in, a particular business, industry, field of technology, trade, or related areas, are the kinds of schools which the legislature intended to regulate when it enacted KRS 165A.310 - .990.
Also KRS 165A.310(5)(c) specifically excludes from regulation under Chapter 165A any school or program "which offers instruction primarily in the field of an avocation. . . ." As with the search for a definition of "vocation, " we have been forced to search far afield for a definition of "avocation. " Under Ross v. State, 36 N.E. 167 (Indiana, 1894), and Peters v. State, 23 S.W. 683 (Texas, 1893), we see that "avocation, " predictably has been defined as a diversion, the opposite of vocation or occupation, and is not synonymous with "vocation. " Certainly, the course of study which you have described appears much more akin to "avocation" than to "vocation. "
Finally, additional support for our opinion may be found at KRS 163.020 which deals with the acceptance of federal acts relating to vocational education. There, "vocational education" is defined as education which will:
"provide training, develop skills, abilities, understandings, attitudes, work habits, and appreciation, and to impart knowledge and information needed by workers to enter into and make progress in their chosen vocations. " (Emphasis added).
Again, general self-improvement does not relate sufficiently to "training, . . . skills, abilities, understandings, attitudes, work habits, . . . appreciation, and . . . knowledge . . . needed . . . to enter into and . . . progress in . . . vocations" to be included reasonably in a definition relating to vocational education, or otherwise, so as to fall within the purview of KRS 165A.