Professor Van Ry

Career- and technical-education programs offered by employers and colleges in the United States are diverse and decentralized, and those traits, according to a report released on Wednesday by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development, are both their strength and their failing.

The United States has “an exceptionally rich” array of offerings in career and technical education, said Simon Field, a co-author of the report, “A Skills Beyond School Review of the United States.” The options in the United States for attending college part time, or as an adult or returning student, are also an advantage.

But that diversity of institutions, programs, credentials, and oversight policies carries a downside, Mr. Field said, speaking at a presentation about the report at the New America Foundation’s headquarters here. “There is a risk that diversity can cause confusion in the minds of students and employers” about which programs are of high quality and worth the money.<Read more.>

Via Goldie Blumenstyk, The Chronicle of Higher Ed.