Introduction
Each and every Country in the world today takes pride in having a large part of its young population that is educated, hardworking and productive. It is important to underscore the importance of vocational education in mind whenever we are keen on ensuring that our children get the best college education. It is equally important to know the capabilities of your children before forcing him or her into college because not every child finds the college prep-classes to be interesting.
I strongly agree with the sentiments of the author to the article, “If you’ve got a trade, you’ve got it made,” This is due to the fact that many people have failed to grasp the essence of attending school. It is not all about graduation and moving from one level to another, but there is more to it than just graduating with good grades but with little technical or practical skills. In this discussion, it will become clear that the immense importance of Vocational education outweighs the perceived advantages of college education.
Importance of Vocational education over College education
It is quite evident that in a sizeable number of young people, College education is a waste of time and resources. In the years to come, a number of the developed countries (notably the United States), shall be faced with acute labor shortages. This is mainly because most Colleges in this country are not offering their students the technical skills required in the labor market. For any Nation to thrive, it must give its youthful population the necessary blue-collar skills who can then replace the retiring blue-collar workers. The country should also ensure that it has equal numbers of skilled workers as well as College grads.
It is important to practice a two- way education system for our College age children. For instance in most European countries, students are given a chance to choose the path to take, either the trade-track or the University-track. In as much as college education may be appealing to some high school students, we should not ignore the existence of another group of students who need to do something different. The latter group could be willing to acquire employable skills that would put them in a position of securing better jobs without having to struggle with college education.
Funds should be set aside to facilitate offering vocational education programs in our schools. These programmes will aid in preparing a particular class of students for the job market by offering them particular employable skills. This will also help save on the resources that would have otherwise gone to waste by forcing these kids into colleges which they do not find appealing.
With the decline in vocational education, there is an equal increase in demand for school graduates skilled in particular fields. It is important to bear in mind that there are many ways to success and that it is not practical to orient all the human resources of a nation towards a particular direction such as expecting all high school students to meet the university admission requirements. All the students will end up struggling to meet the university requirements regardless of the means. This leads to the country in question having a huge number of college graduates who do not have any employable skills and thus the country is faced with a shortage in skilled labor.
Conclusion
The importance of having career and technical classes in our schools cannot be overemphasized, it is a necessity. The main focus of such classes should be on ensuring that students receive the necessary training in vocational skills. Some of these skills include home improvement, health, culinary skills, and home improvement, amongst others.