Business Roundtable

Immediately below on the blog we have a post about how a German business leader sees workforce training in the United States versus his own country, noting Germany's reliance on a dual system that matches industry with schools to produce highly skilled workers. Formalized apprenticeships are common.

The effectiveness of the German system is not lost on industry in the United States, and there's a move to bring companies -- especially manufacturers -- into better coordination with schools to provide students useful training  and ensure companies can hire skilled employees.

From NPR, an excellent report, "A Different Road to Work":

Rebeca Espinal admits with a shy smile that she's a straight-A math student. She's a high school graduate who dreamed of going to college.

 

Instead, Espinal, 17, is working in a Charlotte, N.C., factory that makes gas turbines and generators. She is an apprentice with the German company Siemens.

 

"I was planning on getting a degree in international relations, but with financial aid and how difficult it is to pay for college and everything," she says. "So when Siemens came along and gave me the offer, it was too good of an opportunity to just let it go.

 

With college costs rising and student debt mounting, a group of college-prep kids in Charlotte are opting for an alternative route: European-style apprenticeships.