School-to-Career Program a Success
Local manufacturers are partnering with Tulsa Technology Center and Tulsa’s educational community to help build and maintain a skilled manufacturing workforce in the Tulsa area. This initiative—the Craftsmanship Apprenticeship Program—also helps area students find rewarding career opportunities and benefits Tulsa’s ongoing economic development efforts.
“Since manufacturing is extremely important to Tulsa and the northeast part of Oklahoma, Craftsmanship impacts the entire city and region by building a pipeline of skilled individuals for the manufacturing sector,” explains Gene Callahan, superintendent and chief executive officer of Tulsa Technology Center.
The Craftsmanship program, launched in 1992, is one of the most successful school to career offerings in the United States, and provides innumerable educational and economic advantages. By linking students from area schools with local businesses for real world experience and apprenticeship opportunities, Craftsmanship helps ensure that graduates from Tulsa-area schools will possess the latest skills and industry expertise to satisfy manufacturers’ expectations.
To join the program, students must satisfy a selection of academic criteria, including specific units of study in language arts, science and mathematics. Once they are accepted into the program, Craftsmanship students attend high school in the morning to cover traditional subjects, then head for Tulsa Technology Center in the afternoon to attend classes in machining, industrial technology, and welding. During summer breaks and once a week during the second semester of the program’s third year, students work full time for their sponsor companies and gain valuable hands-on experience supervised by their mentors.
Updated 08-26-2004
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