Teaching and assessing employability skills through SkillsUSA

The skilled worker shortage is real. Shortages include both hands-on technical skills and employability skills. The need to define, measure and teach employability skills has become increasingly important. American business and industry are concerned by the lack of foundation skills in job applicants. The ability to assess employability skills has become a national priority, as reflected in federal government initiatives since 1998. While schools and workplaces are the most likely venues to measure academic and technical skills, respectively, a variety of organizations have taken on the task of measuring employability skills. It is possible to measure these skills through written or computer-based tests or through performance during a long-term project or in a contest simulation. One such organization is SkillsUSA-VICA, a non-profit education association-working in partnership with industry-dedicated to teaching employability skills in public Career and Technical Education (CTE) programs. SkillsUSA is considered integral to public CTE instruction. For thirty-six years, SkillsUSA has developed materials and activities for instructors to teach employability skills and to evaluate outcomes.