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As the labor market tightens, businesses are on the hunt, looking to fill jobs with young people coming out of schools and colleges. While there’s been a lot of talk about the demand for technical capabilities among this burgeoning pool of labor, employers complain that students lack fundamental skills: things like being able to collaborate, communicate, think critically and interact effectively with coworkers.
In response, some states have added requirements that schools teach these skills, sometimes referred to as “soft skills” or “employability skills.” States are adopting online curricula, or in some cases, developing their own programs from the ground up. But some education experts argue that too much of the burden for training people on the professional skills they need is falling on educators. For this training to be truly effective, they say, schools also need help from local industries to provide rigorous real-life workplace learning experiences. Programs like Prepare Rhode Island can offer an ideal way to get kids into the workplace, while sharing the responsibility for their training with employers, experts say.
