The Topic: North Texas webinar series presented by Verizon continued this month with Christine Saba from Nepris, an online portal that connects industry with classrooms, to discuss education and the growing gap between education and workforce.
Filling the Education Gap
With the exponential growth in technology and the role it plays in daily life, more and more jobs require STEM degrees and/or experience. The projected job growth for the current decade, 2010-2020, is an astonishing 62 percent for biomedical engineers, 32 percent for software developers and only and average of 14 percent for all occupations combined. It’s estimated that only 33 percent of these high tech jobs will be filled by U.S. workers. Companies have stepped up to help fill this gap and contributed $2.3 billion during 2011 alone. Not only do these companies bring a real-world perspective to what students are learning in the classroom, but they are making education more relevant. When high school dropouts were polled, 47 percent said they dropped out because they just don’t see the relevance of school.
For industries to make an impact in the classroom, it requires more than money. Professionals need to play a role in the classroom. However, the roadway to the classroom is full of speed bumps – it’s time consuming, connections have to be made with individual schools and classrooms, the right classrooms have to be found to ensure relevant content, it has to work into a convenient schedule and many others. The great news for industries is that Nepris has done the research and taken the time to build a platform that can easily connect these two sectors.
Watch the presentation or view the slides below and get an overview on the education gap in the U.S. as well as an introduction of the services provided by Nepris.