Career and Technical Education (CTE) and High Priority Occupations

February is CTE Month. This is a great time to talk with adult learners about the types of high growth or high priority occupations that exist in your local area that only require short-term training. Many short term training programs offered by CTEs can get adult learners the credentials they need to start on a promising career path. Once they are working, many adults continue to stack additional credentials and/or college credits onto their initial CTE credential. 

The United State Bureau of Labor Statistics' list of 20 of the fastest growing occupations includes the following occupations that align to programming offered by many Career and Technical Education providers:

  • Cook
  • Web Developer
  • Solar Equipment Installers

To help adult learners better understand CTE programs and career pathway options, you may want to have learners explore Advance CTE's website. This website offers a snapshot of the 16 career clusters and different occupations that can be acquired through CTE programming. 

Your state or local workforce development area may also have career pathway maps that have CTE options included. Here is an example of maps that Pennsylvania uses to show high priority occupations that are part of an industry cluster that include both CTE and college degree options. 

The Perkins Collaborative Resource Network also provides information that may be helpful to partners within a region that want to help adult learners access CTE programs that align to local career pathways. 

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During the live Zoom event on 2/1/23 we shared some information from CTE on the Frontier: Rural CTE Strategy Guide. 

“Throughout the research, five cross-cutting strategies emerged as core to any effort to expand CTE pathways in rural communities:

  • Securing buy-in and commitment for new or ongoing reform — and its place within the statewide or program vision for CTE and career readiness,
  • Using data strategically to understand access gaps and assess programmatic and policy impact;
  • Leveraging regional, cross-sector partnerships;
  • Using technology to expand access and reach; and
  • Investing resources to spark innovation.”

Here are some of the resources that were shared during the live event:

The Career Trajectory Dashboard can help adult learners see how different occupations differ in wage growth over time. 

The Integrate Education and Training (IET) Toolkit provides tools and resources that can be used with partners to determine if an IET program could work in your local area with a CTE training provider. 

Many rural programs are having success working with their local American Job Center/One Stop partners to coordinate marketing and recruitment. 

 

Here are some of the takeaways from the live event:

  • A common struggle for rural programs is finding enough staff to provide educational services both adult basic education and CTE. Another common struggle is access to devices and high speed internet to take online courses. 
  • Some areas have been able to use local career tech education teachers and facilities to address staff and location issues. 
  • Leveraging partnerships is important and some programs have been able to be more targeted and specific with their marketing of postsecondary program options. Rather than just advertise for high school equivalency and then talk about training options when they come in the door, some programs have started to market the in-demand/high priority occupations. When people come for that interest, they offer adult basic education services or help them go straight to training.
  • Sharing data with the local programs can be helpful in supporting the importance of IET and career pathways. Some programs are seeing better engagement and outcomes with adult learners who participate in IET.
  • Some areas are finding success with hybrid options with moving training providers from site to site and others participating virtually.