Bridging the gaps between business and education

Here’s an interesting story out of Arizona. Teachers and business leaders are collaborating to improve the communication between business and then secondary educators. Teachers are learning what companies look for when they hire new employees. They’re also learning the practical skills that students need on-the-job.

These types of collaborations appear to be small steps, but they can have significant impacts over the long term. Read more. http://www.zwire.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=14754703&BRD=1817&PAG=461&dept_id=68561&rfi=6

One of the major challenges facing regions today involves bridging the communications gap between educators and business managers. The problem has a number of different dimensions. On one level, business people and educators often do not speak the same language when it comes to education. Educators think in terms of graduation requirements, while business people think in terms of hard and soft skills.

At the same time, cultural differences can arise in many cases. Educators are often unfamiliar with business settings and how businesses operate. Business managers often do not understand the pressures that educators are under with new state and federal requirements. Practical collaborations between business and educators help bridge the gaps.

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Many thanks to Ed Morrison of http://edpro.blogspot.com/ for passing this along. Ed has an outstanding blog on economic dev. issues. Very worthwhile and much appreciated. Russ