TWO years out of high school, Evan Fischbach is earning US$40,000 (RM128,000) a year. His secret: shop class (industrial arts).

In the United States, industrial arts classes are colloquially known as “shop class”; these programmes expose children to the basics of home repair, manual craftsmanship, and machine safety. Most industrial arts programmes were established in comprehensive rather than dedicated vocational schools, and focused on a broad range of skills rather than on a specific vocation.

Fischbach, 19, has known he wanted to work on cars ever since he took an automotive class in his junior year of high school in Saline, Michigan. His college-educated parents wondered if he was aiming too low.

Then when Fischbach was still a junior, a local auto dealer desperate for mechanics hired him as an apprentice in the service bay. Now he’s earning about three times as much as the average 19-year-old high school grad and slightly more than the national median, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

“Friends weren’t interested in auto shop when I suggested it and now I think they wished they had tried it,” said Fischbach, who works at the LaFontaine Chrysler Dodge Jeep Ram dealership. “I’m not rich, but I’m not hurting, either.”

Fischbach is an all too rare success story that educators, legislators and executives are eager to replicate. With schools focused on preparing kids for college, shop class has gone the way of stenography class in much of the US companies from Toyota Motor Corp to Siemens AG, and International Business Machines Corp are pushing high schools to graduate students with the real-world skills business needs.

The message is getting through. This year, for the first time in a decade, the US government boosted funding for high school and college vocational education, though the US$1.125 billion war chest is US$188 million smaller than it was in 2004.

Proponents say re-emphasising vocational education will help reverse the hollowing out of America’s middle class and combat rising inequality. Wage growth since 2009 has been the weakest since World War II even as the rich get richer.

Many parents expect their offspring to attend a four-year college. While many parents agree that more students should attend vocational training, the prevailing attitude is: Not my kid.

Yet businesses can’t find enough people to fix cars and work in factories. Mike Hughes, the service manager who hired Fischbach, finds himself competing with rival dealerships to recruit kids right out of high school. If he can’t find candidates there, he has to train them from scratch.

“Nobody wants their kid to be a mechanic,” said Hughes, who estimates Fischbach eventually will pull down US$60,000 a year. “They just don’t know how good a living it is.”

Advocates of vocational education are pushing high schools to identify students’ career interests earlier and guide them to both vocational and other classes to support that career whether the ultimate goal is college or not. Progress is patchy, and many of the newer programmes require students to leave their neighbourhood schools altogether or travel to class.

Last year, 32,254 kids enrolled, up 30% since 2000. The programme has become so popular that some kids are being turned away, said Judy Savage, executive director of the New Jersey Council of County Vocational-Technical Schools.

“There’s a lot of interest in new programmes that focus on both college and career,” Savage said. “We’re starting to attract a much higher calibre of students.”

Three years ago, New York City started the Pathways in Technology Early College High School in conjunction with IBM, New York City College of Technology and the City University of New York. The six-year high school was designed to help students apply classroom work and real-world skills toward an associate degree in computers or engineering at graduation. IBM provides internships.

Even degree colleges are starting to see the benefits of vocational courses. Seth Bates, who teaches applied engineering at San Jose State University, started a remedial shop class for aspiring engineers who can’t use a power drill properly.

“By 1995, a student who came to us who had actually worked with tools was exceedingly rare, and now it’s almost unheard of,” he said. “Maybe it’s one out of 50 today. Most of them come in without a clue.”

Kyle Jennings, an advanced placement student at Saline High School, is determined to know his way around a machine shop by the time he starts an engineering degree. His dad, a Ford Motor Co engineer, persuaded him to take shop class. His friends mostly think it’s an “easy A” and has zero career value, he said.

“These classes really will help,” said Jennings, as he ferreted out a pressure leak in a Jeep Liberty one day in auto class. “You need to know how to work with machines.” — Bloomberg


This article first appeared in The Edge Financial Daily, on Sept 12, 2014.