WNY Regional Alignment in Education and Career Pathways...It's Happening!

Please watch:                                 https://vimeo.com/157939876


This past week, a group of people met forming an amazing committee!  We are in search of a name, but here is our mission:  To align education and workforce in Niagara County.  It will all begin with planning a Career Event at the New York State Power Authority slated for 2017.  The goal, for a plethora of Regional Business and Industry to participate providing interactive displays and career pathway literature transferable to high school planning.  This event will fill the gap in both student career pathway awareness and regional workforce development.  

What catalyzed the formation of this committee and the Career Event?

Situation #1:  I sat with a wonderful group of students last week asking them many questions.  Two questions, in which students could not answer, greatly concerned me.

I asked 10 students to name one business in Niagara County that offers a career pathway.  They ALL asked me to clarify what I meant (problem # 1).  I restated, "What companies exist in our county where you can begin working that may also offer a carer pathway" (Still, no idea what I meant).  Last try, "Name one company in Niagara County where you can work." OH...now they understood the question.  However, not a single student could name a single company, other than Footlocker.

Situation #2:  The students were very engaged in this discussion, so I asked another career related question, "Can everyone please list 2 or 3 employability skill sets you have, or know of, and how you have developed these skills." Once again, students were not familiar with this language, therefore unable to identify strengths or skills unique to them.  These non-academic components are just as important as academic.  An accepted fact in education is, if a student shows aptitude in math, she/he should become an engineer, so on and so forth. Allow me to elaborate...

What we are born to do can be different from what academic classes we are good at.  There are skill sets and motivators that are important predictors of what a students should become.  It was apparent to me there is a lot of work to be done when the students could not identify any skills they possessed, only that they liked certain subjects.   Liking subjects and being good at them are NOT skill sets. Yes, knowledge coupled with a keen interest in specific subjects is wonderful, but only a forth of the career equation.

Conclusion:

There is a lot of work to be done developing the whole student and then aligning all the student academic and non academic components to the many careers throughout our region.

Solution:

It all begins with a regional partnership between education and employers, i.e., this newly formed committee.  Career Events, like the one we will have at NYPA, are super starts.  More specifically, I encourage you to familiarize yourself with the Indigo Project.  This committee will focus on these solutions!