High School students interested in technical or vocational careers will soon be able to enroll in a program designed to give them the combination of technical and academic skills they need to get a job.

The Cape Girardeau Area Vocational-Technical School and area high schools are working with Mineral Area College at Flat River to develop a curriculum for a new technical preparation, or Tech Prep, program.

The community college has received a three-year, $350,000 grant from the Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education to develop the model program. Ray Walsh, a 32-year veteran of vocational education, is the project coordinator.

Walsh and Dixie Kohn, president of Mineral Area College, met with local school administrators Thursday afternoon to discuss the program.

The Tech Prep project consortium includes area vocational schools at Cape Girardeau and Perryville, the Lead Belt and Arcadia Valley vocational schools, Southeast Missouri State University and Mineral Area College. The 26 local school districts that send students to the area vocational schools will also be involved.

Walsh said, "There have been a lot of changes in the work force over the past years. Low-skill, low-pay jobs are rapidly disappearing, being replaced by automation or moved to countries where labor is cheap."

At the same time, new jobs are being created in high-tech fields like lasers, robotics, and electronics, Walsh said.

"Even today's auto mechanic has to have training in electronics. That technology is very complicated," he said.

And the technology is likely to continue to increase in complexity.

An estimated 75 to 80 percent of all new jobs created in the next 10 years will require some sort of education beyond high school, but not necessarily a college degree.

But statewide, more than 50 percent of high school students are enrolled in the "general track" curriculum, which prepares them for neither the work place nor the college setting, Walsh said.

"That's where the Tech Prep concept comes in," Walsh said.

Walsh explained that this year the consortium is creating career guidance materials for the program. Next year, the curriculum for the first programs will be developed. Students could be admitted into the first Tech Prep program in the fall of 1993.

The program will use a two-plus-two approach. Students in area vocational schools could begin working toward an associate's degree while still in high school. The last two years of high school would also be the first two years of the technical program. The second two years would be completed at a community college or other technical school.

"The real bottom line is a benefit for the students and potential employers," Walsh said.

Wayne Maupin, superintendent of Jackson Public Schools, said, "Tech Prep allows students to plan a four-year curriculum path to achieve career objectives. Successful completion of the Tech Prep program ensures students the options of continuing their education or entering the work force with a distinct educational advantage."

Paul Kitchen, principal of Delta High School, is among administrators helping to develop this pilot program.

"The way I see the program is a whole new way to prepare kids for post-high school," Kitchen said. "At Delta, a high percentage of kids do not go on to college, but a high percentage could benefit from a technical or skilled program, if it were available.

"Now, many students, who graduate from high school, go to work hoping the company has a training program for them.

"Through Tech Prep, we should be able to prepare these students better so they are more marketable, and also take some of the burden off businesses," he said.