Role of Public High Schools Preparing Students for Blue-Collar Jobs

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What Role Should Public High Schools Play In Preparing Students Who Do Not Want To Do “Knowledge Work”? And, How Should This Work Be Compensated Fairly?
Introduction
Why schools should prepare students for blue collar jobs
We are living in an age of academic inflation. The education system which was designed for the industrial age is becoming hard to be mapped in the information age. However, most countries have restructured their education system to mirror the knowledge work and overlooked the blue-collar jobs. Blue collar jobs have been left for the ‘uneducated’ despite their immeasurable contribution to the economy and civility of humankind. It is likely that all non-knowledge work will be replaced by machines and robots in the future and that has driven education system hinged on knowledge work. However, educating and training the future generations only for knowledge work has continually been creating structural unemployment and many other unintended consequences. The academic inflation has soared whilst the experts in blue collar jobs have continually reduced CITATION Mar142 \l 1033 (Webster). Additionally, the education system has overlooked the importance of blue-collar jobs and contributed to high dropouts cases CITATION Jef17 \l 1033 (Selingo). The education system has also overlooked the students who ‘like’ manual work and excluded them in the school system. They are either discouraged on following up their passions and or poorly facilitated to successfully translate them to careers. It is also insufficiently or unevenly supplying the labor market with the same skillsets (mostly in white-collar jobs-knowledge work) and undersupplying an equally important sector of the blue-collar job. Everyone will need a manual worker to fix the roof, to fix their car, fix the plumbing system in their houses among other important tasks that are inevitable in our daily lives. Mike Rowe's show ‘dirty jobs’ shows the indispensability of these jobs to our civilization and why schools must prepare the next generations for them.
How can schools prepare high schoolers for the blue-collar jobs?
The manual/blue collar jobs are heaved under the societal stigma. They are considered ‘dirty’ and unimportant. They are also less paying because society does not appreciate their true value to its survival. High schools can help shape the perception of the upcoming generations on the true importance of these jobs and encourage students to take them up. They should e accorded the same respect and place in the society as the white-collar jobs and the education system can be instrumental in shaping the perception of the students towards these jobs CITATION Jef17 \l 1033 (Selingo). If the societal perception of these job changes especially in their true importance and their likelihood of earning a living from them, it could lead to a spike in the number of students wishing to take them up. Ironically, they are among one of the best paying jobs. Income from a vintage car garage can be millions per year which very few knowledge works can ever pay. Thus, schools can help lift the stigma and objectively inform students on the facts about these jobs because most of the information about them are myths or misconstrued facts.
Very few schools have diversified their curriculum to accommodate students who like manual work. Most schools channel their resources to ‘academic’ work. Diversifying the curriculum to bring on board vocational arts training such as welding, woodwork etc can help institute a system to encourage students to take up manual work. It can also offer a good pastime activity in which they can create things with their own hands which have far-reaching psychological satisfaction than continually building their knowledge base. High schools should, therefore, channel more resources non-knowledge work-related programs which celebrate the diversity of the learner’s abilities and preferences. Schools which feature this diverse curriculum with vocational arts training and other ‘non-academic’ programs have lower school drop out rates. Thus, diversifying the curriculum to incorporate vocational training can help students achieve other ulterior goals for schools such as higher completion rates CITATION Uni182 \l 1033 (Univer...