The
Pilot program certifies individuals' skills for businesses' requirements
Published: Sunday, November 12, 2006 - 6:00 am
By Jenny Munro
BUSINESS WRITER
jmunro@greenvillenews.com
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Learning to think and solve problems -- that is what students need from school, says the co-director of the Donaldson Career Center WorkKeys pilot project.
It's what businesses demand of the young adults they hire, said Susan Bedingfield, English instructor at the career center. And it's what the entire WorkKeys program is designed around.
WorkKeys, a workplace assessment tool designed by ACT, focuses on job analysis, assessment and skills upgrade/training. Developers expect it to reduce turnover, affect a business' bottom line, focus the selection and hiring efforts and increase productivity.
"Schools should be teaching people how to think, how to do research, find answers and apply those answers," Bedingfield said.
Far too often, that's not what students learn, said Bedingfield and Robert Lancaster, also a co-director of the WorkKeys project.
"We're using WorkKeys to explain to the
students what businesses expect them to know" when they apply for a job,
Becky Godbey, manager of work-force development for the Greater Greenville Chamber of Commerce, said a major benefit in WorkKeys is that "it creates a common language. When a businessman says, 'I need more math,' it may not mean he needs higher math. It may mean he needs workers with greater knowledge of basic skills."
The program allows businesses to say they need workers with specific skill levels in applied math or reading for information, she said. The workers can demonstrate those skills through the assessment test. And schools can ensure that students graduate with a certain level of commonly needed skills.
For job seekers, "it's another tool to reinforce my ability to be the right person with the right skills for the job," Godbey said.
The
But 250 to 300 students at the
Five 11th- and 12th-graders said the program -- tests that measure their knowledge and skills in vital business fields such as applied math, reading for information and locating information -- will help them when they look for jobs.
"It looks good on your resume," said Ramon Ashy, an 11th-grader in the machine tool program.
Travis Samples, an 11th-grader in auto mechanics, said being certified at specific WorkKeys levels -- bronze, silver or gold depending on test results -- "helps you advance in a corporation faster. That little (certification) card will get you a better job."
Godbey agreed with that assessment.
"A lot of companies are using it with their incumbent workers" to determine who will be promoted, she said.
Darnel Gregory, an 11th-grader in auto mechanics, said studying WorkKeys "helps me recognize the tricky questions on my tests."
But the students said they're not really learning anything new. They're relearning things they already know and finding out how that knowledge might be useful in a work situation, said Moriko Clark, an 11th-grade machine tool student, and Wil Meuldijk, a senior studying auto mechanics.
Meuldijk, who is already taking classes at
Nationwide,
An employee with a bronze certificate has the skills to fill about 30
percent of the jobs in the
WorkKeys "is going to show what they've done in school is relevant," he said.
Also, "it's going to encourage people to continue to learn," Godbey said, adding that supplemental training is available
through Life-Long Learning or the
If the fast-food, retail and grocery chain industries that hire many high
school employees come on board and require the certification,
"If they didn't have a WorkKeys certificate, they wouldn't get a job," he said. For the business, "this is a tool to get a better quality employee, one that doesn't take as much time and expense to train."
The two teachers and Cheryl McClure, director of the
Once that occurs, "hopefully, we won't have employees coming from
Europe or
Bedingfield said she and her students have been surprised at some of the results of the WorkKeys pretests.
Her students usually are those who have had difficulty with English classes in the past, she said.
"When they take the reading part, they have scored 4s. One little girl scored a 7. All have scored at least a 3. It definitely gives them a look at what real-life reading at work is going to be like," she said, adding that what employers need is often different from what academic teachers expect. "It makes them realize real life is not novels and Shakespeare."
The program benefits students by building self-confidence, improving career opportunities and enhancing the opportunity to advance in a career.
Educators benefit by identifying gaps in student skills and employee needs.
The community wins through the use of WorkKeys
because businesses would be encouraged to move to the region, entry-level jobs
could be filled locally and the unemployment rate could be lowered, according
to the
The three educators said the WorkKeys exams could eventually replace current exit exams and perhaps other standardized testing now required by schools.
"I really do believe in this program," Bedingfield said.
"The program uses real-world problems that they must think through for themselves -- 'What is the question and where do I find the information to answer it?' This measures problem-solving."
Drill team: Ramon Ashy, left, with
direction from teacher Matthew Brady, right, of
HEIDI HEILBRUNN / Staff
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WORKING THE KEYS |
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WorkKeys uses a series of
questions to determine the level of skill a test taker has in specific
job-related skills, such as applied mathematics or reading for information.
Various questions include different levels of skill. Here are some sample
questions in applied mathematics: Level 4 -- Over the
past five days, you made the following number of sales calls -- 8, 7, 9, 5
and 7. On the average, how many calls did you make each day? Level 5 -- Quik Call charges 18 cents per minute for long-distance
calls. Econo Phone totals your phone usage each
month and rounds the number of minutes up to the nearest 15 minutes. It then
charges $7.90 per hour of phone usage, dividing this charge into 15-minute
segments if you used less than a full hour. If your office makes 5 hours and
3 minutes worth of calls this month using the company with the lower price,
how much will these calls cost? |
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