Career technical education courses at Hawaii high schools are seeing big enrollment increases amid statewide efforts to incorporate new technologies, more rigorous standards and better partnerships with industry professionals.

Some 27,400 Hawaii high-schoolers took at least one career technical education course in the 2010-11 school year, up by 52 percent — or more than 8,100 students — from five years earlier.

Meanwhile, 2,421 students graduated in 2011 with a designation indicating they had completed all the requirements of a career technical program of study, up from 1,595 in 2007.

Department of Education officials said career technical education, formerly called vocational education, has been revamped to emphasize the relevance of coursework, tie learning into what’s actually going on in the workplace and create courses for media-savvy 21st-century students.

"Instead of having woodworking, we have building and construction," said Sherilyn Lau, educational specialist for CTE at the Department of Education. "Instead of just graphics, we now have gaming, animation, fashion design. Instead of typing, we have finance and entrepreneurship."

Schools have also worked to expand career technical education to all students, not just those who don’t plan to pursue a four-year college education. Budding engineers and teachers are now encouraged to enroll in technical education courses, along with students interested in being construction workers, nurse’s aides and paramedics.

At Campbell High School in Ewa Beach, about 50 students are enrolled in the design technology program of study, and teacher Wendell Tashiro said it looks like that figure will as much as double in the coming school year. The program attracts a broad spectrum of students.

Tashiro, who has been a CTE teacher for 26 years, said the biggest draws for students are technology and the promise of hands-on projects. The program gives students the chance to use 3-D printers and state-of-the-art software as they work on building items from the ground up.

He said CTE gives students knowledge and skills that will "prepare them for problems today and for the future."

Tashiro’s students were recently commissioned to create lighted centerpieces for a Public Schools of Hawaii Foundation banquet, and were charged with handling everything — from communicating with their customer and designing the centerpiece to figuring out what materials were needed and building it. The centerpieces were so popular Tashiro got orders for about 10 more from banquet attendees.

Campbell design tech student Kristen Balanza, 17, said she was attracted to the program after hearing about the projects students were doing and the technology they were using.

"This is our sort of way to connect to the real world and solve actual problems," she said. "We bring these things to life."

The growth in Hawaii’s CTE program comes as many states are also revamping their career technical education courses, and as the U.S. Department of Education looks to fashion CTE as a viable, rigorous option. U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan has called CTE the "neglected stepchild of education reform" and urged states to rethink CTE standards and incorporate into programs the skills students will need for the modern workplace.

Hawaii is among 45 states that have adopted the national "common core" standards, billed as providing students the skills they need to be "college- and career-ready."

James Stone, director of the National Research Center for Career and Technical Education at the University of Louisville in Tennessee, said the "college- and career-ready" mantra is a more nuanced approach than its predecessor, "college for all," and is giving CTE programs space to flourish.

But Scott added that there remains a wide degree of variability in the quality of CTE programs nationwide. There are still a fair number of "legacy programs," he said, "that aren’t doing anything for anyone."

Hawaii started to redesign its career technical education program about a decade ago with new federal funds dedicated to career-oriented programs at high schools, community colleges and career-education programs. The state gets about $1 million a year for CTE programs at high schools.

A major part of Hawaii’s effort has been to form partnerships with a host of industry professionals, who serve on councils for each program of study and consult with the DOE on the standards students need to meet to be ready for the workplace. The councils meet at least quarterly, sometimes more often.

Barbara White, associate state director for career and technical education at the University of Hawaii, said the industry professionals are demanding — and have ensured courses are not only tough but are teaching students the skills they need for the careers they’re interested in.

"The bottom line is, vocational education used to be a place where you went if you couldn’t do anything else. It kind of had that stigma," she said. "We’re trying to bring in the idea that it is for a career and not just an ‘Oh, well, what should I do today?’ job."

White said there is plenty of anecdotal evidence that the CTE classes are engaging and inspiring teens. And while it’s unknown whether CTE students do better on state assessments, they do have a higher graduation rate than the statewide average. Some 98 percent of students in CTE programs of study graduated on time in 2011, compared to about 80 percent for all students.

Derek Kurisu, executive vice president of KTA Super Stores, has been involved with technical education at schools for well over a decade and currently serves on the business pathway council. He said high schools need to dispel the "college for all" notion.

"We don’t need all college graduates," he said. "We don’t need all Ph.D.s." 

He added that among the big benefits of the CTE program is that it gives students a flavor of what the workplace is like — and how to handle the daily stresses of a job.

"It’s about preparing the student for the real world," he said. "It’s about giving them the right values so that they’re able to change as change is needed."

Kurisu said he and other industry professionals are now looking at creating a job pool of CTE students, allowing them to gain experience as they attend school. Juniors or seniors, he said, could conceivably work a part-time job, and after graduation either begin working full time or continue working part time and pursue post-secondary education.

"By the time they graduate, they’ll be prepared for managerial work," he said.