Kudos for the WSJ running an article (Apr 2, 2024; linked below) that shows TVET in a positive light. Anyone who has played a significant part in the blue-collar portion of the US workforce development system since the late 1990s would surely say this is long overdue. While I was happy to see that the younger/incoming generation of workers have expressed greater interest in seeking a career in the construction trades vs blindly following the College for All path, I fear this article obscures several key points.
Pros:
- college debt in the USA has skyrocketed since the turn of the century.
- a shortage of skilled workers has become an ongoing mantra for businesses.
- school counselors realizing the value of alternative career paths.
Cons:
- placing too much emphasis on community college training courses vs apprenticeships.
- the “dirty shop” stigma—also known as “silent discrimination”—is alive and well.
- missing the opportunity to leverage the importance of lifelong learning.
Having sat on the US Secretary of Labor’s Advisory Committee on Apprenticeship from 2003-10, I can attest that labor, management, and academic representatives worked together to expand and enhance the opportunities of Registered Apprenticeship Programs (RAPs). Most of us saw the need to create an apprenticeship system similar to that of our European counterparts…especially modeling that of Germany and Switzerland. At the time, nearly 70% of the RAPs were related to the construction industry and approximately 75% of those were affiliated with unions…while almost 100% were positioned at the post-secondary level! As one can deduce, this scenario poses a host of issues, of which, the most pressing is that only ~7% of the US workplaces are unionized.
As an ongoing student of RAPs, I now enjoy stepping back to see the progress we have made in the past ~15 years. Clearly, more and more (including white-collar) sectors of the US economy have found ways to embrace the RAP model…often while students are completing their secondary education. Not to mention, any RAP worth its weight has a clear and seamless pathway for apprentices to obtain a college degree…likely debt free. Since most firms desire leaders with both theoretical and practical knowledge, this is a means to ensure workers in the field are being developed as leaders in real time.
At times, progress seems like it moves at a snail’s pace. I guess Aesop was on to something when he said: “Slow but steady wins the race.”
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