Vocational Training Teaches Entrepreneurship

If Congressional Bill H.R. 610 is about dismantling the public school system, vocational training is an answer to ensure all youth get an equal education. It may not be focused on reading, writing and ‘rithmatic exclusively, but this movement is teaching youths real world skills to build a future for themselves.

Across the U.S., a growing movement is educating kids in the principles of entrepreneurship – what it takes to create, start, and grow a business. The world of work has changed … everyone needs to have an entrepreneurial mentality regardless of whether they create and lead their own company or they work for someone else. Vocational training fills this need. According to Victor Hwang, VP of entrepreneurship at the Kauffman Foundation, “The school system has long taught for industrial jobs: how to find a job, how to fill a job. But the jobs of the new economy are ones where you have to be entrepreneurial.”

This article by Tom Foster, Editor-at-large, Inc.com, “Inside the Schools That Want to Create the Next Mark Zuckerberg–Starting at Age 5“, gives me hope for future generations. Across the U.S. kids are learning how to make and sell their own products. From handmade dog treats to gluten free baked goods and even security software, kids are learning skills to stimulate innovative thinking and hopefully ensure the next Mark Zuckerberg.

Schools over the years dismantled their vocational training programs. When I went to high school, we had classes like Home Economics and Shop where we learned how to cook and sew or how to repair cars and build things. Those programs disappeared as schools tightened budgets to focus on reading, writing, science, and math. While important educational programs, these exclusively left-brain-focused classes didn’t work for students who predominantly learned by physically “doing” something. They needed to make something to learn the concepts of math or science. Classes in shop and home economics did that.

Vocational training programs are making a come back

Now we’re seeing a resurgence of these vocational training programs, not in schools, but funded by the private sector and non-profit organizations. The traditional education program in the US doesn’t fit everyone. Some students just don’t want to get a business degree. Some know they want to work with their hands. And there is nothing wrong with that. Asian cultures have educated their youth this way from birth. Young children are tested at an early age to determine which path they should take. Then their entire education is focused on that path.

On the other hand, we’ve tried to fit all students into the same box in the effort to provide equal educational opportunities to all. And it isn’t working. Our educational system has not evolved fast enough to meet the demands of the new types of work that technological innovation is creating. Witness the outcry of companies like Google, Intel, and Qualcomm who say they can’t hire qualified people educated in the US. They need to import talent from other countries.

Compared to in-classroom courses, “vocational education aims to prepare students for their futures by focusing on the industries that interest them,” according to the Associated Builders and Contractors, Inc. Institute blog. The article continues to say, “Vocational education is more like college in the sense that students are expected to be autonomous. This helps to prepare students for the future by encouraging them to manage their own time and take care of themselves. Those who graduate from vocational school may be more prepared to assimilate into the “real world” than those coming out of high school.”

Vocational training, like exposure to arts and science through field study trips, helps to bring classroom learning into the real world. Many of us, whether young or old, learn best by doing.

Vocational training programs teach self awareness, responsibility, time management, as well as specific skills like wood working or animal husbandry or cooking or car maintenance. Math, reading and writing are wrapped up in the learning process as students apply their physical as well as mental faculties to the learning.

They prepare students for the new world of work.