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For high school students, education in mechanical, electrical and plumbing (MEP) construction and other construction trades can offer the motivating one-two punch of hands-on learning and real-world experience.

However, lack of clarity and focus in career education can lead to disengagement. For every student who from high school or a specialized field, the construction industry loses a skilled job candidate who could have contributed to workplace cultures of operational excellence, safety and innovation.

Strategic partnerships pairing schools with construction firms, tradespeople, unions and youth organizations can help course-correct the lack of meaningful career development in schools and refuel the job pipeline. With this dynamic model of career learning, a customized curriculum can harness meaningful, personalized apprenticeships to teach high school students the trade skills and real-world expectations needed to enter the workforce and stay there. 

Creating a Construction-focused Education Model

Many youth could be guided toward construction careers, but traditional approaches to career and technical education (CTE) can’t move the needle because they don’t connect the dots from school to industry. 

As the reports, CTE is often underfunded, inaccessible, hard to replicate and swimming against a tide of negative stereotypes. 

As a result, labor shortages keep plaguing today’s project owners, contractors and supervisors. Without a continuous stream of qualified people, jobsites suffer from slowdowns and do-overs, quality shortfalls and accidents.

The key to disrupting traditional CTE is blending experiential apprenticeships with relevant high school courses and expanded postsecondary-credit opportunities. 

One model of productive disruption is the (CCCA), established in Sacramento, CA. When industry supports intentional strategies, such as these built into the CCCA curriculum, the job pipeline fills up with more and better tradespeople.

Target underprivileged students.

Throughout America, human capital languishes in distressed neighborhoods, rural areas and immigrant and refugee communities where opportunities are scarce. Outreach to underrepresented communities is critical to growing the labor pool.

Developing CTE in the heart of places where truancy, trauma and hardship run high offers youth an escape route from the cycle of poverty.

Create opportunities for young women.

Young women also represent a vast source of future talent for a field where comen constitute only , according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. and that break down barriers to CTE gives young women the hands-on experience that sparks interest in lifelong, well-paying careers in trades, construction and design. 

Cultivate overlooked talent.

While industry partners help craft curriculum and programming, other partners can include disability services that take a strengths-based approach to learning. When students with dyslexia learn through hands-on experience or students with autism hone their organizational skills, employers gain access to extra sources of reliable talent, ready and eager to join the team. 

Create authentic learning opportunities.

Community partners are integral to a genuine learning experience. They donate funds, open their doors to students and advise on programming in fields where workers are needed. Their input and active participation grounds career learning in real-world expectations, for solutions addressing the construction industry’s most pressing labor challenges.

Design purpose-led academics.

Progressive career education stays germane to industry demands by weaving construction challenges into classroom lessons. Students might encounter math for carpentry, meteorology for materials weathering, and communications for conveying change orders. 

Rethink dual enrollment.

Offering college credit in high school can when it’s paired with a career focus, according to the James Irvine Foundation. Traditional dual enrollment that channels students into limited options can’t always satisfy their appetite for real-world connections. A more dynamic approach expands postsecondary learning and training, such as offering credit from local community colleges as well as four-year universities. 

Leverage technology.

Design-technology courses and meaningful workplace assignments immerse students in building information modeling (BIM), automation and sustainable practices that are driving today’s jobsites to new heights in productivity and efficiency. While students love using advanced technology, they are also learning the foundational skills of critical thinking, problem-solving and using technology as a tool to optimize project delivery. 

Exploring the Path to Construction Careers

Exploration is the hallmark of effective career education. Instead of corralling high school freshmen into tracked curricula, career education should deliberately walk students through the dozens of career possibilities ahead. Consider the developed by CCCA.

1. Getting Engaged

   Local unions and contractors assign their people to lead first-semester freshmen in hands-on activities every week. 

2. Shadowing

   With engaging experiences under their toolbelts, students choose three second-semester job-shadowing preferences. At each posting, they spend time in all divisions, witnessing every aspect of operations, whether jobsites, front-office customer service and salesWestern New England University
   +Bachelors of Arts, History, Secondary Education or back-office accounting, human relations and IT. 

3. Apprenticeship

   Students choose the paid apprenticeships they will conduct in their upper-class years. Reflections and assignments built into their shadowing assignments help them select the fields that intrigue them.

Building Character for Construction

Any business or union thinking about supporting a career education program wonders about ROI. Will their investments deliver measurable returns?

The answer differs for every business, but active engagement with progressive career education can generate these benefits.

• Soft Skills

  As employee development and retention grows more costly, integrating students into workplace cultures protects those investments by instilling the soft skills that employers value most highly – showing up on time, communicating clearly and working hard. 

• Collaborative Mindsets

  Students who engage in collaborative learning, in their classrooms and apprenticeships, step into the workplace prepared to function as team members. 

• Mental Health

  Comprehensive construction career education gives students the fortitude to deal with the mental health hazards that, unchecked, can cause job delays and provoke accidents. For example, community-service providers can lead student discussions on protecting their well-being and navigating social pressures. 

• Hitting the Refresh Button

  Employers who enlist students for job shadowing and apprenticeships gain fresh perspectives on their own workplace cultures. They can capitalize on the opportunity by convening their teams to reflect on maximizing their impact on the lives of marginalized youth, rewriting stale job postings to become more enticing to young candidates and crafting policies that retain outstanding, highly qualified talent.

• Dynamic Networking

  When influential leaders in construction partner to advise career education in their communities, they engage with strategically aligned peers committed to workforce development and community betterment. Meeting over shared interests can convene representatives of commercial construction, building trade unions, construction education, public transportation and more.

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Linchpins of Learning

Community business partners in education grapple with daily risks and opportunities but also commit to the long game that ensures future viability. 

They recognize that career learning delivers results only when industry steps up with guidance that keeps curriculum relevant and dismantles barriers to careers. They offer the resources, hands-on experiences and paid apprenticeships that make learning come alive. 

With their guidance, educators continuously refresh old models of vocational education because the next innovation could be the one that makes the tumblers click for a disaffected student. 

At CCCA, one student seemed uninterested until she entered a design-build competition and built a tiny home in two days. Her engagement skyrocketed, and she wants to become a carpenter.

Another CCCA student was intent on becoming a welder, but the exploratory model demanded that he spread his wings. After pairings with a fencing company and a carpenter – who would gladly have hired him – he will finally get a welding torch in his hands through credit-earning community college courses and an earn-while-you-learn apprenticeship. 

This student will probably stay fixed on his passion for welding, but soon, he will be an asset as a versatile employee whose diverse skills set and broadened outlook bring operational agility and leadership to the jobsite.

51����es can also work with local school districts and state education departments to find existing career education programs that would welcome their support. In addition, youth-oriented nonprofits — such as Girl Scouts councils invested in STEM education — welcome an offer of hands-on, character-developing activities that prepare young people for lifetime success.

By cultivating community partnerships and leveraging education to alleviate the root causes of workforce shortages, the construction trades can fill the pipeline at a steady pace. It’s a matter of capturing human capital and turning its power toward the strategic goals that drive business forward.

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