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Educational and Economic Development Act set to kick off
By Dennis Quick
Senior Staff Writer
Starting this school year, South Carolina’s eighth-graders must begin thinking seriously about their futures.
The students will be required to choose academic courses in at least one of 16 career clusters and begin developing a career path. The clusters are broad and cover industries ranging from agriculture to the arts, marketing to manufacturing, information technology to transportation.
By their sophomore year in high school, those students must declare a major within a cluster of study and embark on their academic pathway to a career.
It is all part of the Education and Economic Development Act the state Legislature passed in May to strengthen the state’s work force and help South Carolina compete globally for business.
The act is aimed at reducing South Carolina’s 47% dropout rate and better preparing students for post-secondary education and jobs requiring higher skills.
Additionally, the act is designed to lower student-to-counselor ratios so guidance counselors can spend more time helping students plan their futures.
By July 1, 2011, the act must be implemented fully in all of the state’s 85 school districts.
Having a plan
The Education and Economic Development Act will help high school students understand the purpose of their education and give them a direction in life, educators and business leaders claim.
“Students have to learn early on about work and why they’re in school,” said Gwen Scarborough, Berkeley County School District’s school-to-career coordinator. “Every student should graduate with a plan.”
That plan is part of Personal Pathways to Success, a program that begins in elementary school by making schoolchildren aware of careers. In middle school, students get further exposure to careers by exploring different occupations and in high school they will begin to prepare for professional life.
With the help of their parents and school counselors, eighth-graders will map out their high school classes by preparing Individual Graduation Plans. The plans would be reviewed each year, and students would be able to switch majors and clusters. All high school students will take required core courses in math, English and science but will select different electives based on their majors. The electives will be geared toward preparing students for specific occupations.
For instance, a student majoring in automotive vehicle service in the transportation, distribution and logistics career cluster could take, in addition to the required core courses, electives in automotive technology and collision repair, plus courses in welding, accounting, marketing and physics.
Options after high school
A key purpose of the Education and Economic Development Act is to provide students not interested in attending college with the skills necessary to pursue careers in trades.
Local manufacturers hope the act will do exactly that. They say the lack of skilled workers keeps the Lowcountry labor pool shallow.
“We’re losing business to countries like China and India because we don’t have the skill level,” said John Poole of Cummins Turbo Technologies.
One reason for the skill shortage is that many high school students shun careers in manufacturing because they perceive the industry as grimy and low-paying.
However, welders and other skilled workers can earn a lucrative living without a four-year degree, Poole noted.
Dennis Quick is senior staff writer for the Business Journal. E-mail him at dquick@charlestonbusiness.com.
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