VO-TECH SCHOOL: ACADEMICS NOW COUPLED WITH SKILLS TRAINING

For years, vocational educators have been showing students how the skills they learn in academic classes are put to use in the "real world."

That partnership between academic and vocational classes will expand, thanks to new federal guidelines, said Gary Gilbert, director of the Cape Girardeau Area Vocational-Technical School.

He said business and industry also are demanding better-educated employees for all jobs, so academics are becoming an integral part of what happens at the vocational school.

Applying academic skills to vocational training is nothing new, Gilbert said. Experience has shown it works, he said.

"We've found that when students increase their academic skills they are better vocational students, and better employees," Gilbert said.

"We've had teachers here for years who have been teaching applied science, math and English skills. Now the federal government wants us to show how we apply those skills in every vocational program.

"We want to work as a team with secondary school academic teachers," Gilbert said. "We can tell them these are the skills industry needs, and so these are the skills our students need."

He said vocational students may enroll in a class called Principals of Technology, which is really applied physics. In the course, students study fluids and electrical currents and how these principals of physics apply to auto mechanics, electronics and other vocational trades.

Gilbert said some students have an easier time understanding concepts or skills when shown how they work or when they are needed.

Two area high schools, Cape Girardeau Central and Scott City, offer applied mathematics courses outside the vocational school setting.

The federal requirement for more academic emphasis in vocational training comes through the new Carl D. Perkins Vocational and Applied Technical Act, which provides federal money for vocational education. The Cape Girardeau vocational school and some of the schools that send students to the vocational school receive a total of about $95,000 annually through the act.

"One of the things we must show is that the money has made an effect; that it has increased the competencies of the students.

At the post-secondary level, the emphasis on academics continues, Gilbert and Harold Tilley, coordinator of adult education for the school, agreed. In fact, Tilley said, adult education programs today also include more emphasis on academic skills than ever before.

"When we operate training programs for businesses, they also ask for a basic skills component," Gilbert said.

"It's hard for us to store in our heads all the things we need and all the things we have been taught," Gilbert said. "Employees might need a refresher course to draw upon the academic skills they learned years ago."

Also, employees today must be better trained.

Tilley said, "Technology is advancing at such a rapid pace, students today need more skills than ever before."

Jobs for unskilled laborers have virtually disappeared. Approximately 80 percent of the new jobs created in the next decade will require some sort of education beyond high school.

To help meet the need, a pilot project to integrate academics and vocational education with post-secondary training is being developed at the Cape Girardeau Vocational School and three other vocational schools in Southeast Missouri. The program, called Tech Prep, hopes to give students a competitive edge on the job market by providing them with skills they will need.

Tech Prep allows students to plan a four-year curriculum to achieve career objectives using a "two-plus-two" approach. Students in area vocational schools could begin an associate degree while still in high school. The student's last two years of high school would count toward the post-high-school training program.

The Tech Prep program is an example of how an academic program and a vocational program could work together to help students become better prepared for the workforce.