> Pacific Vocational Education Improvement Program
> Overview
> * Background
> * Purpose
> * Program Goal
> * Funding
> Background
> Education plays a critical role in promoting the economic well-being of societies. It helps students and adults acquire the skills needed to pursue productive careers in the work world and to create the new industries and businesses on which future prosperity depends. Nowhere is the potential economic impact of education more evident than in the Pacific region, where many nations are actively seeking to reduce their reliance on imported workers in key managerial, professional, and technical occupations; prepare students to establish or expand domestic industries (e.g., tourism, marine resources, and agriculture) that will generate needed revenues; and increase labor productivity in all sectors of their economies. In the Pacific, as elsewhere, a skilled and capable workforce is one of a society's greatest assets in achieving both the standard and quality of life it desires.
> Purpose
> In 1998, Pacific Resources for Education and Learning (PREL) established the Pacific Workforce Development Program (PWDP) to support Pacific jurisdictions that are planning or implementing educational reforms to improve the work readiness and economic productivity of their citizens. The PWDP staff currently manages the Pacific Vocational Education Improvement Program (PVEIP), a project funded by the U.S. Department of Education, Office of Vocational and Adult Education <http://www.ed.gov/offices/OVAE/>. The PVEIP assists nine Pacific jurisdictions in strengthening their secondary-level vocational-technical education programs. PWDP and other PREL staff are also actively involved in Pacific implementation of the School-to-Work Opportunities Act <http://www.stw.ed.gov/> and the Workforce Investment Act <http://usworkforce.org>.
> Program Goal
> The goal of the PWDP is to assist Pacific jurisdictions in designing and implementing education and training systems that will prepare their citizens for high-quality jobs in the global, regional, and local labor markets, and support the jurisdictions' economic development aspirations.
> Funding
> As a self-supporting unit within PREL, the PWDP is funded by grants and contracts from external agencies and organizations. Clients include schools and institutions of higher education, public and private economic development agencies, labor organizations, and community-based organizations responsible for local workforce development initiatives.
> http://www.prel.org/programs/pwdp/overview.asp
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Thu Dec 12 2002 - 08:00:41