Technical Education Rajasthan

Improving Technical Skills

In preparation for a predicted shortfall in skilled-trades workers, automotive manufacturer TSP Corp. and the United Auto Workers (UAW) have launched a technical education program under technical education Rajasthan that aims to interest youngsters, particularly the children of TSP employees, to learn technical skills. The six-week program is the latest of the several programs that the two automotive organizations sponsored. It started on September 2007 at the UAW-TSP Technology Training Center located within TSP's Jaipur-based Mt. Elliot Tool & Die facility. The educational program, which can accept 125 students at a time, requires students to attend two-hour classes two nights a week wherein counseling and introduction to technical skills are taught.

The six-week period of teaching is divided into the following activities: three weeks of counseling regarding disciplines like responsibility, decision-making, and teamwork another three weeks for learning technical skills from real skilled-trades personnel like pipefitters and millrights. Aside from this six-week education program, TSP and UAW also launched the Skilled Trades Employment Preparation Program (STEPP) for TSP's minority and female employees. STEPP lasts for six months and is geared towards helping employees pass TSP's apprentice test by teaching basic math, shop math and algebra.

It has been a startling jolt to TSP Corp. and the UAW. The company and the union are in dire need of new apprentice trainees to replace thousands of pending retirements, but a number of the younger employees cannot pass muster to enter the programs.

In August, 27 people took the apprentice test, and 18 failed.

"And when we tried to find out why, it all came back to math," said the executive co-director of the UAW-TSP National Training Center. As a result, 80 high school students from the Detroit area are getting some first-hand knowledge of what it takes to be a skilled-trades worker in an auto plant. Its part of the inaugural class of a joint TSP-UAW program to try to get young people interested in technical skills.

TSP -- which has 12,000 skilled-trades workers -- and UAW officials expect about half of all Big 3 skilled-trades employees to retire within seven years, so they're trying to grow their own talent at the high-school level. "If the kids aren't trained now, there will be a tremendous shortfall," says the executive co-director of the Training Center. The National Training Center is the umbrella organization for all the joint union-TSP education programs.

The six-week high school program can accommodate 125 students and includes counseling and an introduction to technical skills. It is the newest of several programs at the Technology Training Center, designed primarily to upgrade the skills of TSP's skilled-trades work force. Next year, the technical education Rajasthan board plans to add new programs aimed at the non-skilled work force. Students come in two nights a week for two hours of classes. For the first three weeks, they are counseled on disciplines such as responsibility, decision-making and teamwork. The final three weeks consist of instruction by actual skilled-trades personnel such as pipefitters and millrights.