Essay on Technical Education

On Sunday (13 April, 2008) I watched the show "Awareness" on WISTV and was inspired to share with you some of my ideas in this short essay.

During that program it was stated that we have approximately a 25% drop-out rate at about the 9^th grade level in South Carolina. The entire first segment Sunday was on the future of these drop-outs, particularly as it relates to their future job availability. The thing that I think was missing in the discussion during that show was any articulation of why these people tend to drop out at about the 9th grade level. There continues to be a need to work on the "before 9th grade" part of the problem.

Our current system of education in South Carolina in some cases is simply functioning as a filter, not an educator. The majority of the dialog that I have seen in the media recently was between college graduates that, to that 25% group, appear to be the academically elite talking about how to go to college and how to persuade or enable everyone to be like them.

It is evident, even when shown as good examples in the media, those that do go back to school and earn their GED and even beyond, are put in a special and separate category.

The SC Technical Colleges are spinning themselves as a means to get to and through a four-year college degree. I have watched the process over the last forty years that have led to the SC Technical Colleges current success of now being acceptable for college credit for most of the major universities.

In my opinion this success has come at a price regarding the original focus and even the current Mission and Vision of Technical Education in our state.  The 25% that are dropping out of school early are the ones that today, for multiple reasons, cannot see themselves surviving in an academic path. Humiliated, maybe even covertly, they just give up. There is truly no path obvious to this group that makes them want to continue. We need a means for these people to know about and see as viable the other options available to them. They need to be able to "drop-into", a different path of education.

When the Technical Schools were created in the 1960s, they did a better job of representing an alternative path. One could actually build a Life Strategy that ended with developing and applying a marketable skill obtained at a SC Technical school. It was possible to choose that path and not be seen as some sort of non-performer.

Presently some of our Technical Schools seem to be "Want-to-be-Universities". In this current environment I wonder what the ratio is between time/resources spent negotiating with the universities to achieve transfer accreditation and time/resources spent in working with industry to determining curriculum changes needed to stay in touch with industrial needs.

And even further, the loss of agility to make desired/recommended changes due to the impact on previously achieved agreements on accreditation. Do we even have the knowledge base or time availability of staff to accurately assess the industrial need Vs current curriculum?

Today, advisers at all grade levels must be aware of the message that is received when the student that they are helping make life strategy decisions realize that they, the adviser, and most these recruiters and professors that now work in the Technical School organization chose the four-year (or higher) degree path. There is a need for mentors to be examples of where we are advising the student to go. One problem is that we almost hide our non-four year successes. Pure Technical School Graduates are not celebrated. They, the graduates, in many cases are not proud of the source of their education.

To be effective as a mentor to that target 25% group one has to be able to show how they did it without ever having achieved that four year degree. A mentor holding a Ph.D. cannot do it!

In summary, the current risk and reality is that the Technical Schools are being sold largely as another bridge to the place that 25% group, cannot see themselves going. The feeling is that if they go to Tech and do not eventually achieve their four year degree they risk never feeling the pride of success.

If we continue on our current path our Technical Schools will simply blend into the higher education landscape without being distinguished as that much needed alternative path.

As with all progress we must plan strategy from where we are. The answer is not to undo all of the good things that have been done, but to restore the good part of our history that has been abandoned.

Essay by: David C. Mims – Sr.

AAS/EET Midlands-Technical College, Columbia South, Carolina (Honors 1970)