The New Look of Career Technical Education

Demand for technical skills increases

The employment outlook for career technical education is excellent and expected to increase over the next few years. A deficit exists between the number of skilled technical workers entering the workforce and the number of jobs available because of the increasing demand for trained technicians.

Reading, writing and 'rithmetic aren't only Rs being instructed in high schools these days. Rigor, relevance and relationships are the hot education buzzwords and a growing series of classrooms around the U.S., as teachers try to train today's students for tomorrow's workforce. The push is to adhere students to excellent standards while instructing subjects that make them ready for jobs or college as schools combine with businesses to accommodate their needs. Technical training is a segment of larger efforts that target a new model for high schools by unifying limited learning communities with meaningful classes.

The modern Rs have made the prior standards more appealing. What was formerly recognized as vocational education, a definition now shunned and replaced by the more distinguished name of career technical education, educators and politicians have lined up a political and financial foundation as they call upon this modern conception as a way to give students greater options after graduation while benefiting businesses.

The days of shop class and home economics have past. For years, individual schooling veered from vocational education, concentrating on preparing students for college with a presumption that prosperity hinged on a degree, not just a high school diploma. But with the necessity for a skilled workforce, and the compensation that goes with it, career tech has been transformed. An auto-shop pupil who earns special certification can make $35,000 to $45,000 a year out of high school and potentially $100,000 or more annually in the same time it would take former classmates to graduate from a four-year college.

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In addition to more classes taught through their school districts, principals are also clamoring for extra class offering trade school from regional occupational programs. There's more demand than supply from groups including businesses, labor unions, public safety officers and correctional officers, all banding together to push for career tech classes. According to ConnectEd, a nonprofit organization that studies and promotes career technical education, there are various signs of success. There aren't definitive statistics to highlight the impact that career technical education has a wholesale effect on graduation rates, but research shows that the more career tech classes a student takes, the higher earning potential the student has.

Technical training programs suffered from oversight while the thrust for college for all students did not succeed. The one-size-fits-all is an method that has not worked, and workers are needed in the career tech fields as well as other professional fields. career technical education is getting its first adequate infusion of funding in more than 20 years, as one of the waves of the technical career future. It's a considerable necessity for a skilled workforce, especially in areas that demand fusion of hands-on with modern technology.

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