Career and Technical Education

High schools prepare students to be ready for college, career, and the world beyond.

In many ways, this means that at the point they graduate, they have every option in front of them, whether to pursue higher education, a gap year, or a career path that may take them into training programs or apprenticeships right away.

The Career and Technical Education (CTE) fields—which include a wide range of professions from agriculture to manufacturing to tourism—have also become increasingly global. The rising middle class in developing nations is creating new demands for products and services, and the supply chain grows increasingly more global.

Some high schools offer classes in career and technical training that are giving students – and the local economy – a needed boost. Schools allow students to pursue a rigorous core curriculum, and also real-world study related to a career field. Students pursue areas of interest, earn technical credentials and licenses, and sometimes college credit for advanced coursework. This is no longer vocational education that was considered a pathway for the non-college bound. These are now cutting-edge programs – informed by workforce trends and the skills that companies say that they need in employees – that lead students to diverse and interesting career possibilities. CTE programs serve to more directly link the the practical skills and knowledge that students will need when entering the workforce to the education and training that that they are receiving in school.

Asia Society works with a number of stakeholders in the CTE fields to  improve student achievement by providing them with relevant contexts for their future careers.

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