When Taylor Ferguson started as a freshman at Towson University in Baltimore, she was already well ahead of her nursing program classmates. As a high school student in the Academy of Health Professions Program at Western School of Technology and Environmental Science, she had earned certifications in CPR and First Aid and had learned to take vital signs, make hospital beds, and communicate with patients, physicians, nurses and hospital administrators. The experience she developed proved valuable not only in her nursing program, but also was setting her up for long-term career success.
Skilled workers are in high demand in the healthcare industry. The need for registered nurses in the United States is expected to grow about 16 percent between now and 2024, which is a much faster rate than the average for other occupations. The median annual salary for entry-level registered nurses is nearly $67,000 and it includes a strong career pathway to future opportunities. With the skills Taylor is developing, she is well on her way to high-skill and good-paying career.
Unfortunately, economic success is increasingly out of reach for many other young people. As the economy has evolved to require a more skilled workforce, not enough young people have access to the college and career pathways that build the skills that good jobs increasingly demand. Too few students have the same opportunities that the Academy of Health Professions Program afforded Taylor.
Today, the youth unemployment rate in the U.S. is more than twice the overall national rate. The unemployment for young black people is about four times the national rate. Five million young people, including a fifth of black and Latinos, are neither working nor in school. They are stuck in low-skill, low wage jobs and are missing out on opportunities to build their skills and advance economically. These challenges put significant strains on workers and their families, as well as businesses and local economies.
We must address this youth career crisis, and it starts in our schools. Career and technical education systems must be better aligned with the needs of business. This will ensure the necessary skills training provided to young people matches them up with high demand jobs in growth industries in their communities such as health care, advanced manufacturing and technology.
We know that these types of jobs are out there – one third of American companies’ report having job openings for which they cannot find qualified workers with the correct skills. Economists project that by 2020, more than 60 percent of new jobs will require more than a high school diploma, but about half of those new jobs will not require a four-year degree. Yet, only one in three Americans in their mid-twenties today has graduated from college, and only 10 percent have a degree from a two-year college or the right training or certificate to get a job requiring technical skills that pays above the living wage.
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"Have we learnt nothing in 100 years? This campaign is using World War One imagery and once again generals and politicians are urging young people to volunteer to join an organisation in which they are expected to kill and die when someone more powerful than them orders them to.
In their desperate attempts to meet recruitment targets, the army has resorted to increasingly bizarre and misleading advertising campaigns. Young people who choose not to join the army are showing more wisdom than the military leaders who think that they can patronise and pressurise people into signing up.
"Many young people today are well aware of a reality that generals and politicians won't accept: that armed force cannot solve the world's problems and that we need to tackle the underlying causes of conflict. Many young people are choosing compassion and conscience over violence and conformity. The low levels of army recruitment are something to celebrate."
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