Vocational Training in High Schools – A Model the United States Should Revisit and a Lesson From the Past

by Dean Prigelmeier, President of Proactive Technologies, Inc.

I know this dates me, but in high school in the 1970’s I participated in a very good vocational electronics program. It was 2 ½ years in length and was conducted in addition to the traditional high school curriculum. I felt fortunate to attend and complete the program, as did my friends who were enrolled in electronics and the other craft training programs such as automotive, drafting (precursor to CAD-CAM), metalworking, welding and woodworking. Each one of us in the vocational electronics program went on to achieve higher degrees and/or successful careers after receiving our certificate of completion at graduation.

“…my point is this and begs the question every technical school graduate asks themselves even today, ‘How can I be marginally or completely obsolete 2 weeks after graduation”’

Looking back, I am still impressed with the quality of the program. It was closer in purpose to the European style of education and apprenticeships. The electronics program was state-of-the-art along with the instructor’s delivery of industry-relevant content supplemented by guest speakers from industry with current topics. Our high school vocational students, as with others in each state, even competed with community college students across their state to test our skills in Vocational Industrial Clubs of America (“VICA”) competitions for the right to represent the state at the national competition. That is how good our high school vocational program was; comparable to community college levels of learning. Since prior to the advent of microprocessors technology advanced at a slower pace, the vocational electronics training programs at that time trained students for local jobs that were currently in industry very well, which was exactly their mission.

Today, VICA has been replaced by SkillsUSA. SkillsUSA seems suited for the digital age, and may be even better at national outreach and career exploration. Whether it is enough to make up for the loss of high school locally-focused vocational training, with high employer engagement and program completion that lead to employment, is doubtful since the primary emphasis today seems to be the national framework and national training program content.

Continuing with my story, when I graduated high school, the United States was entering a significant recession. After, perhaps foolishly, passing on initial offers, I was unable to get a job in electronics as I had hoped since there appeared a cyclical slack in hiring for that sector, not because of my education and training. But I did soon find myself in a “manufacturing quality control technician” track by luck, partially due to timing but mostly to the vocational education I received in a “science centered” field. I still had a desire to return to electronics and while in my second manufacturing quality control position at a manufacturing plant that had both metal manufacturing and electronics, I approached the electronics department manager to make my case. I was told, “Your grades in high school vocational electronics are impressive. But we require a 2-year associate’s degree for the electronic technician positions here. If you are interested, the company will pay for you to attend a community college program while you work in quality control here and then we will reassess you for one of our electronics department positions when you graduate.”

I took them up on it. In those days companies could write off and/or get a tax credit for the cost of the employee’s tuition and books. What a concept. I was not going to pass it up, so I attended the “best program in the state” at a local community college. I was hoping to learn more to add to my electronics training. Additionally, I was going to receive my first degree! Working full-time and going to school full-time wasn’t so bad. And I finished my degree program debt-free! I later took advantage of employer-reimbursed education when achieving my advanced degrees while working at other manufacturing companies.

Immediately after I graduated with my A.S. degree in Electronic Engineering Technology (a fancier name than “vocational electronics”), I met with the manager that had set me on this course with my transcript in hand and a burning desire to move from quality control to my primary field of interest at the time. I felt fortunate to have this option while quality control itself had turned into a pretty good career and paid well. The same electronics department manager with whom I had met prior enthusiastically greeted me and reviewed my transcript for several minutes. He then looked up and said, “These grades are impressive. All “As.” Well they should be. My 2 years of community college electronics was, sadly, a repeat of my 2 ½ year high school electronics program. Then came the bad news. “But, we don’t do anything with tubes anymore. Everything is moving to solid state.”

As I said, I am dating myself but my point is this and begs the question every technical school graduate asks themselves even today, “How can I be marginally or completely obsolete 2 weeks after graduation?” In the 2 years it took me to repeat the 2 ½ years of vocational electronics I took in high school, technology advanced and out-grew the curriculum content of the community college program and rendered me with a negative gain to my skill base. But I could still fix my family’s and friend’s TVs and stereos.

Employers are reluctant to do what they perceive is the job of the technical schools and community colleges…especially if they paid for the learning. Although the electronics department had technical experts who could have built on my core skills and trained me on the tasks to be performed to help harness the core skills they paid for, companies then, and more so to this day, rarely have a structure in place to do so without bringing down the productivity of the existing department.

What I learned early on from this experience was that:

• The relevance of the job training at learning institutions matters greatly; more than the credential;
• It doesn’t matter as much whether it is taught in high school or at community and technical colleges, or that a national organization endorses it. It should be locally relevant because that is where the worker lives.
• The content should be of the same quality, and it should be the most accurate it can be or the time and costs spent (by the trainee, the local government and employer) might not have the intended impact and impair, rather than prepare, a worker.
• Without a structured on-the-job training program for the “accelerated the transfer of expertiseTM” a “risk averse” employer will not hire even a well credentialed candidate.

Today, this translates into insurmountable debt for too many graduates (since employers no longer pay for tuition reimbursement) that cannot be paid in a lifetime of low-wages in a substitute job. Unlike trade schools prior to the 1980’s when change was less rapid, educational institutions today that rely solely on textbooks, endorsements by national groups and the availability of an qualified instructor may have inadvertently created a system to crank out marginally relevant workers which detract, not add, to the society and economy.

Employers, accept the fact that high schools no longer have vocational programs but instead may partner with career centers, technical and community colleges. These programs are designed for the mass education of potential workers and vary in their quality of their content. Though they frequently try to overstep their limitations, an educational institution’s most important role is to build for each potential worker a strong foundation of core skills – directly relevant to local employers or lead to higher education. If they do this and the employer accepts, upon completion, their graduates and deliberately develops them further in the task-based application of those core skills through structured on-the-job training, any of these candidates can be accepted with confidence since the employer will ensure that each will quickly be adding value to their operation.

Waiting on the schools to do it all makes no sense. Instead, employers should convince the learning institutions to focus on their natural area of competence, and demand relevancy of course content. But they must also become an active player in worker development if they truly want the skilled workers they say.

If you have reached this level of awareness and concern, why hesitate? The Proactive Technologies’ systematic approach and the cost-effective investment your organization can make to close the skill gap once and for all is here, tested and proven. Learn more with a 13 minute preview of upcoming live online presentations.