The German Vocational Education Model Enters the USA

11/13/2014

As reported in this USA Today news, many high schools and community colleges are opening manufacturing tracks for the students, and the job prospects are promising: one 19 year old landed a $12-an-hour job last year after graduating from Wheeling High School's manufacturing program and is on his way to a career that pays upwards of $80,000 a year. Project Lead the Way, a non-profit organization which creates high school engineering and technology curricula, says one manufacturing class it designed for Wheeling is offered in about 800 schools.

Such high school programs borrow from the German vocational education model. The German companies entering the USA are bringing here the German model for vocational education. Siemens partnered with Central Piedmont Community College to create a program that supplies machinists for its turbine and generator factory opened in Charlotte in 2011 (after seeing only 10% of applicants passed a math and science aptitude test and only about 450 of 3,000 people it trained for five months were hired). The program is such a bargain: High school seniors and graduates who enter the program earn associate degrees while serving as paid apprentices at Siemens for 3½ years, and they're guaranteed a $55,000 a year job at Siemens after graduation. Volkswagen, on the other hand, built its own academy next to the 3,200-employee assembly plant it opened three years ago in Chattanooga, Tenn, and instructors from Chattanooga State Community College teach high school graduates and others while they serve apprenticeships at the factory. Volkswagen spends about $1 million to put each student through the three-year program. Toyota has a similar program at its factory in Georgetown, Ky.

Even with the rapid recovery of these manufacturing programs (according to the American Association of Community Colleges, community colleges awarded 1,557 associate degrees or certificates in manufacturing last year, up from 616 in 2005 but below the nearly 1,600 in 2000), the demand for workers still far outstrips the number of students taking courses. With the manufacturing cost keeping going down (due largely to the low energy prices) and manufacturing jobs flowing back to the USA (the cost in China is steadily rising), we can expect more demand for manufacturing jobs. Even though the American system is relatively weak in training for such jobs, the diversity and competition inherent in this system will bring about institutions and programs focusing on preparing for such jobs.

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