Vocational Training in High Schools – A Model the United States Should Revisit: Part 2 of 2

by Dean Prigelmeier, President of Proactive Technologies, Inc.

In Part 1 of “Vocational Training in High Schools – A Model the United States Should Revisit” in the June, 2016 issue of the Proactive Technologies Report, a personal experience of vocational and community college program completion was discussed. The point was made that the high school vocational training programs of the past, which were phased out in the 1980’s while schools faced budget cuts, seemed closer to a European educational system approach and offered a relevancy to local employers that nationally coordinated efforts of today do not.

The 1980’s saw the beginning of the proliferation of computers in personal lives and business. Machines were being retrofitted to be run, in part, by PLC (“programmable logic controller”) programs and new machines were being designed around it. Even the most mundane tasks, such as writing correspondence and processing a business transaction, were being automated. As the technology, with all of its promise, was understood and absorbed the rate of technological innovation accelerated – creating an increasing gap between 2 and 4-year educational curriculum and industry needs.

In order for a textbook to be integrated into a technical or career education program, someone from industry would have to write it. The textbook would have to be published, it would have to be marketed, vetted by the curriculum or book review committee and issued during an upcoming semester. Then someone would have to schedule the class and complete a 2 or 4 year program. That is 2 – 3 years for a book to be written plus 1 – 2 years to publish the book plus 1 year for the book to be marketed plus 1 year for the book to be accepted by the review committee plus 2 – 4 years for a student to complete the program. It is easy to see that the latest and best content might yield a graduate 7 – 11 years behind the current needs of employers.

This gap is guaranteed IF the instructor is not constantly adapting the program with technology and aggressively searching for the state-of-the-art enhancements and supplements to their courses. Sadly most are not, either from complacency, being stretched too thin and/or budgetary constraints applied on them. Although this system for selecting curriculum content still works fairly well for the liberal arts where change is not as dramatic, job-related training programs at the same institutions are strained by the constant pressure of technological progress that changes jobs that exist in industry today and tomorrow.

Those institutions that recognized this and compensated for the inadequacies of content with current industry content, and/or selected instructors who worked concurrently in industry, adapted well. Those that avoided change, because they didn’t understand it or didn’t want to deal with it, struggled – some still struggling today. The unfortunate byproduct is graduates who cannot find a job in their field 2 – 3 months after graduating even when jobs exist. The longer that time passes before the graduate finds that first job the higher the likelihood that they will be continuously passed over by a potential employer in their field – a loss to the potential worker, the employer who needs work performed and the community which works better when its citizens are working.

Well designed, structured internships can help significantly. These too have evolved in the last 20-30 years from when just having spent time at an employer’s site was good enough. Today, a graduate of a high school or community college is competing for the same entry-level position as skilled laid-off workers with decades of experience and probably a higher degree or two. For the same price, employers can pick between someone young and green and someone educated and experienced. Want to guess who wins? That’s right, the skilled, experienced worker – if willing to take the entry-level wage rate. Those employers that do not have an internal training program may, also, mistakenly believe that absorbing a new-hire with broader core skills and experience would be easier. Without a training infrastructure, the experience may be frustrating with either decision.

If the employer has a structured on-the-job training program they could host an internship that leads to an apprenticeship and everyone benefits. ProactiveTechnologies routinely partners with educational institutions, training providers and workforce development organizations to build strong employer-specific worker training programs to eliminate these gaps. Educational institutions can focus on providing candidates with strong core and general industry skill foundations. The critical task-specific training that is set-up by Proactive Technologies for its clients, is structured, implemented, managed and documented using the employer’s data, facilities and staff. This robust combination drives worker development rather than hopes for it.

Combine a low-performing core skill development system with a weak system of on-the-job training and the outcome could be disappointing. Recently the U.S. Department of Labor issued a Training and Employment Notice TEN_29-15 on 2-29-16 entitled “Release and Availability of a Report: Evaluation of Programs Funded by the Technology-Based Learning (TBL) Grants Final Report.” One point that was made illustrates this fact in a section entitled Lessons Learned: ”While survey respondents [of those completing a technology-based learning program] felt they learned something new from their TBL training, less than half of the survey respondents felt the knowledge they acquired in these programs would help them advance in their career…this suggests that TBL training programs may need to evaluate their objectives and determine whether they are offering content that has enough depth or relevance for current skills required of the workforce.“ About 53 percent of employed participants had a job in the sector of their training!

In looking back to the vocational programs of old, I have to say I believe the factor that made the difference was that each vocational instructor had more independence in designing their course and managing their curriculum. They were judged harshly if someone graduated from the program and was irrelevant to the local industry, and their job would be in jeopardy. When the vocational programs were eliminated during indiscriminate budget cuts of the 1980s, that instructor talent and drive was lost. Several decades later there are attempts to re-institute vocational training (call it what you will) in high schools but it is nationally designed and micro-managed, and often considered an afterthought by local high school administrators who do not understand the need and/or see the world in terms of the traditional credit courses they are familiar with, and who may not understand the concept of “job-relevancy.”.

Had the United States stayed on that path that early vocational education set we may have had something that more closely resembled the European form of apprenticeships, where students in grade and middle school are exposed to current jobs in industries so they can start narrowing their interest early on in life. In high school, they would receive vocational training in their field of interest which leads to a valuable onsite paid apprenticeship for those interested, in the last few years of school. The employer could hire them after graduation or their skills were current enough to transfer fully to another employer in industry.

Instead, the U.S. has a hodgepodge of approaches throughout the land. None seem to be working very well if you look at the statistics. This is in spite of the billions of taxpayer dollars being directed to find a solution instead of an expensive band-aid. There is a lot of lobbying support for incremental changes that do not threaten the existing institutions. Maybe one day the U.S. will catch up to where the Europeans were 20-30 years ago. We can only hope.

In the meantime, employers can start the course correction by focusing on building stronger structured on-the-job training programs for their workers. If educational institutions want to be relevant in the national workforce development strategy, they will have to measure the quality and relevancy of their course content against the job mastery outcome of the employer’s internal training system. Those institutions open to change and inclined to recognize the need for continuous improvement will find an employer with a lot of data to share and a willingness to “team-up.”.

If educational institutions cannot transform themselves to accurately meet the needs of the employer’s workers, maybe employers can transform themselves to meet their own needs internally – leading the way for education to join them when ready and once the path is set.

Take a few minutes to learn more about the approach through a 13-minute video presentation. If interested, attend a live online presentation of your area of interest or schedule a time and date suitable for you and your group. If your interest is peaked, schedule an onsite demonstration, presentation and discussion that focuses the discussion exactly on your organization’s needs. You have nothing to lose and so much to gain.