Resurgence of technical & career education

One of the answers to our economic challenges is technical education. As the Christian Science Monitor reports, Suddenly, vocational training back in vogue:

Enrollment in technical education soared by 57 percent - from 9.6 million students in 1999 to 15.1 million in 2004, the US Department of Education reported to Congress.

There's every indication that interest is continuing to rise, as families struggle ever harder to afford the traditional college education and as demand grows for skilled US workers in fields such as aviation mechanics, computer technology, electronics, global positioning, and trades ranging from culinary arts to construction.

"American career technical education is being redefined because the needs of the evolving US and world economies are changing," says Darrell Luzzo, incoming president of the National Career Development Association. "Educators at all levels are recognizing that the world's employers increasingly need skill sets that the conventional four-year college degree doesn't give."

The once-standard offerings of technical education - wood shop, metal shop, machining - don't cut it in today's economy either.

"We are redefining almost everything that has to do with the intersection of new technology and the global economy," says Mark Whitlock, CEO of Central Educational Center in Newnan, Ga., a charter school. "The economy is changing and therefore education has to continue to change."

Fields of study today are likely to include more forward-looking careers: crime forensics, composite-plastic fuselage design, robotics, nanotechnology, radiological diagnostics, 3-D animation, and the burgeoning field of "industrial maintenance technology" (keeping the high-tech systems in a modern industrial building up and running).

Reinvigorating the technical education system is one part of the preserving American economic competitiveness in this new information driven economy. The other is to improve the critical skills that student's need when they enter the workforce. More on that next.