STEM Employers Help Prepare the Workforce of Tomorrow
How can schools prepare their students for life after graduation if they don't know what employers need and expect?
For too long, the only contact that schools had with employers was via technical or vocational programs. The courses that most college-bound students took had little to do with the issues, challenges or functions that concern business and industry.
Today, schools need to draw upon the expertise and real-world needs of business and industry. This relevance leads to greater student engagement and potentially higher graduation rates. What's more, close connections between industry and education help students begin to shape their career paths.
Since its founding in 2003, the N.C. New Schools Project (North Carolina New Schools) has partnered with the business community in its work creating innovative and successful secondary schools. Companies have helped North Carolina New Schools touch the lives of nearly 25,000 students to date by:
- Providing advice and input that helps shape curriculum
- Offering monetary and program support
- Making internship and job shadowing opportunities available to students
- Hiring graduates of North Carolina New Schools-affiliated early college high schools
The Industry-STEM School Connection
While business and industry participation has been important in the creation of new schools across the state, it's absolutely crucial to the development of STEM schools. STEM schools rely heavily on the opportunities that only employers can provide from lab equipment and partnering on projects to curriculum ideas and visiting faculty arrangements.
Why is this significant? The ultimate goal is to produce students who excel at college, careers and life. Given that STEM careers will dominate the economy, it makes sense to focus on growing the pool of young people qualified to enter STEM fields.
At the college level, certain academic disciples have prerequisites, among them the hard sciences and advanced math. Students who've had little exposure to or negative experiences with these core STEM disciplines in high school are unlikely to take them in college. STEM in a vacuum can be intimidating to some high school students, especially those from low-wealth communities or whose parents didn't attend college. But STEM in a career-focused context can help motivate and inspire students who otherwise would walk away from such subjects.
