It is no surprise that Michigan and the U.S. continues to face a skilled trades labor shortage, in an ongoing effort to address this shortage the Strengthening Career and Technical Education for the 21st Century Act has recently been signed into law. The National Roofing Contractors Association (NRCA) had a large part in seeing this bill passed. This bill will reform career and technical education programs under the federal Perkins Act. The law includes reforms and improvements to make career and technical education programs more responsive to employer’s workforce needs, such as:
Expanding opportunities for work-based learning programs.
Strengthens incentives for the development of industry-recognized credentials
Providing new opportunities for collaboration between employers and educational intuitions to meet local workforce needs.
The bill will increase funding levels for these programs for the next five years.