Everyone is talking about common core, when they talk about education. After all, English, language arts/literacy and mathematics aptitude are clearly critical in helping young people achieve success. But these basic skills functions are just the beginning when it comes to helping our future workforce develop solid and sustainable career pathways.
Competency-based education needs to play a significant role throughout the educational cycle, teaching aspects of customer service, personal qualities (i.e. dressing for success and showing up on time), interpersonal communications, problem solving and decision making, and both computer and financial literacy. All employers seek these attributes in their employees.
Contextualized learning approaches are proven effective in helping ensure that basic skills and the additional career competencies are learned, retained and applied. Teachers today are discovering that students’ interest and achievement in math, language and the sciences improve dramatically when they can make connections between new knowledge and experiences with other knowledge they have already experienced. Student involvement with their schoolwork increases significantly when they are taught “why” they are learning particular concepts and how those concepts can be used in real-world contexts. Concepts are then internalized through the process of discovering, reinforcing, and relating.
The idea is to teach the concepts and then provide a work-based, real-life example of how that concept is used to achieve outcomes (i.e. manufacture a product, deliver a service, or build a business). Work-based experiences is where the “rubber meets the road.”
Whether it be through a school internship or apprenticeship or job shadowing opportunities, a work-based component can make the difference between educational irrelevance and educational attainment and long-term success. If your business is not already engaged in any of these activities, you should consider one or more.
Summer and after school internships
There are many ways to get summer or after school work opportunities. The first is for the young prospective job candidate to ask businesses directly. Workforce investment boards, like Capital Workforce Partners, in the Greater Hartford area administer both summer and year-round programs that incorporate both competency preparedness as well as placement at worksites with subsidized wages when funding is available. In 2014, Capital Workforce Partners placed over 2,300 teens at hundreds of retailers, healthcare facilities, manufacturers and others throughout the region.
Apprenticeships
Connecticut’s technical high school system helps prepare students for various trades, some of which require apprenticeships, and work-based learning is an optional component for juniors and seniors. One might suggest this component should be mandatory, or at least more strongly encouraged. In 2012, just 325 students (about 10 percent of eligible technical high school students) participated. The Connecticut Department of Labor regulates apprenticeships, working with education officials who approve and verify educational components.
In apprenticeship programs for the licensed trades, such as plumbers and electricians, the employer agrees to hire an apprentice to work over a set period of years, with on-the-job training as well as classwork. At the end of an apprenticeship, the employee is ready to take the license exam. In Connecticut, a license exam applicant needs to be at least 16.
Job shadowing opportunities
Job shadowing is a career exploration activity that offers a young person an opportunity to spend time with a professional currently working in his or her career field of interest. Job shadowing offers a chance to see what an actual job or occupation is actually like. Since this activity does not usually incorporate wages or stipends, it is easy for multiple departments in businesses to take part for a day, week or whatever works best.
As a business person, you have a responsibility to develop your future workforce and the workforce that is needed to keep our country competitive and our economy sound.
Thomas Phillips is the president and CEO of Capital Workforce Partners, a regional workforce investment board.
