by Alex Nuti-DiBiasi, Journal-Opinion
Austria and Vermont share more than the Von Trapps.
Yesterday, Gov. Phil Scott and the Austrian Ambassador to the United States signed a memorandum of agreement (PDF) to collaborate on developing apprenticeships, vocation training, and technical education.
“For the last seven years, my team has focused on the need to grow our workforce and to help fill the good jobs we have available right now,” said Scott in a statement. “Any strategy to increase the skill and size of the labor pool should include an emphasis on apprenticeships and on the job training. It’s also important for us to learn from friends abroad, like our partners in Austria, how to best serve Vermonters into the future.”
“This exchange is a win-win—it is in the interest of U.S. businesses and Austrian subsidiaries alike,” said Ambassador Petra Schneebauer. “We are looking forward to this new dialogue and to working and sharing our expertise with our friends from Vermont. Our newly-established apprenticeship cooperation is the next step in our growing relationship with the State of Vermont after the State Partnership Agreement between the Vermont National Guard and the Austrian Armed Forces was signed last year. We are pleased to continue to work together and deepen our relationship on both of these issues.”
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I didn’t know that we has a state we’re so clueless on how to encourage, run, and manage apprenticeships. This form of education is centuries old. Why do we need an agreement with the Austrians to relearn these things? This sounds like a program to facilitate bureaucrat trips ( vacations ) back and forth to Europe at tax payer expense.
Apprenticeships, vocation training, and technical education are nothing new in Vermont. But, yet again, we hear about more ‘dialog’ from Governor Scott.
Enough with the ‘dialog’, Governor. As a Vermont employer for the last 40 years or so, as a former River Valley Technical Center school board member, and member of the National Workforce Investment Board, I can say, unequivocally, that this talk is a cheap substitute for the educational and workforce development reforms Vermont deserves.
For decades, most of Vermont’s educational institutions have considered apprenticeships and on the job training as mere boxes to be checked in order to establish legitimacy and receive funding.
I challenge all VDC readers to monitor this new initiative. There’s no ‘there’ there.
“Our newly-established apprenticeship cooperation is the next step in our growing relationship with the State of Vermont after the State Partnership Agreement between the Vermont National Guard and the Austrian Armed Forces was signed last year.” Why is there an “agreement” between our National Guard and a foreign military? UN agenda or expanding NATO forces in preparation for WWIII – will our boys be protecting the EU or part of the blue helmet brigade placing us in chokehold lockdown?