Today's Students/Tomorrow's Workplace: Are They Ready for Each Other? Vocational Education in South Carolina's Secondary Schools.

Overview & Synopsis

A number of publicly available documents were examined to provide an overview of the operations of secondary vocational education in South Carolina and to assess the outcomes of the system. The focus of the analysis was on the extent to which the state's vocational education system is relevant to the needs of South Carolina's economic development and to the needs of students who do not choose to go on to postsecondary education. Among those areas investigated were curriculum, enrollment, business and office occupations education, trade and industrial education, home economics education, health occupations education, the relationship between occupational outlook and vocational education curriculum, the relationship among occupational categories and curriculum, supply and demand data, career exposure, career guidance, job placement, and communication between the vocational education system and local business and industry. Data pertaining to these areas suggest that the operational realities and outcomes of vocational education are not consistent with the purposes of the system as set forth by state leaders and that the purpose of vocational education needs to be reexamined. (MN)