EVANSVILLE— Businesses have jobs available for students seeking employment rather than a college education after high school; however, employers simply don’t have the skilled workers to fill those jobs, a state legislator said Friday.
As a way to address what State Rep. Wendy McNamara referred to as the “skills gap,” she discussed proposed legislation Friday morning that would create a Career and Technical Education (CTE) Diploma for Indiana high school students.
McNamara, R-Mount Vernon, said she believes the same opportunities that are given to students wishing to pursue a four-year degree should also be made available to students pursuing a career in technical education.
“It is my opinion that the only way to fix, or make a dent in, the skills gap is to address it through a CTE diploma,” she said during a news conference at the Southern Indiana Career and Technical Center in Evansville.
McNamara’s bill would require the Indiana Career Council to appoint a committee to develop requirements for the diploma. The bill will also require the committee to obtain input in developing diploma requirements from math and English teachers and design new curriculum and/or create new courses.
The CTE diploma would require at least 40 academic credits and would be designed so that completed courses could be used to fulfill the requirements established for other high school diplomas.
Over the past year, McNamara said she has met with industry and education leaders and it became clear to her that there is a “serious shortage” of skilled production workers across the state. Referring to a 2013 Indiana manufacturing survey of small- and medium-sized manufacturers, she said that shortage is expected to increase by at least 10 percent in the next three to five years.
“This bill will create an opportunity for students in high school that they don’t currently have,” McNamara said. “Most importantly, it will shape Indiana and give us the opportunity to grow into the 21st century and create the careers that everybody is looking for.”
In the past, it’s been obvious that the current one-size-fits-all approach of the Core 40 diploma doesn’t work for all students, said Dan Ulrich, Director of Career and Technical Education for the Evansville Vanderburgh School Corp.
“Thanks to Rep. McNamara, we now have the opportunity to look at that to give kids options relative to their career path,” Ulrich said. “It gives them the flexibility around Core 40 and gives students the choice in what interests them as a career.”
If McNamara’s legislation becomes law, she expects the program to be available for students starting in the 2015-16 school year. the Indiana State Board of Education so schools can start offering the diploma in the fall of 2015.
“I have it on a pretty rigorous pathway to make sure that gets done,” she said. “But in my opinion, there’s no sense in waiting another year to make it happen.”