Today, a free professional development course and toolkit was released to help educators address a critical imperative: to prepare all students for work and civic roles in an environment where success increasingly requires the ability to compete, connect, and cooperate on an international scale.
Created by the Center for Global Education in partnership with the Association for Career and Technical Education (ACTE) and Advance CTE and supported through the generosity of the Project Management Institute Educational Foundation (PMIEF), “Global Competence Through Career and Technical Education” is a customizable, 10-12 hour, online course and toolkit for middle and secondary school CTE teachers.
One in ten Americans is foreign born, and local communities-urban, suburban, and rural-are growing more diverse. To take advantage of global market opportunities, companies must hire workers with global competence-that is, the capacity and disposition to understand and act on issues of global significance. With an anchor in preparing students for the careers of their choice and a focus on the critical academic, technical, and employability skills needed for success, CTE offers a natural platform on which to build global competencies. Furthermore, integrating project management into CTE curricula helps students strengthen the skills necessary to cooperate in teams, identify and mitigate risk, and execute and monitor collaborative work, skills imperative in the 21st century workforce.
The online course is available through ACTE’s CTE Learn community and the toolkit is available on the Center for Global Education website.
The project addresses three main objectives:

• Educate and engage with CTE stakeholders on the need for global competence in order to prepare students to meet the demands of careers in a global 21st century.
• Educate CTE teachers and students about the global career opportunities that exist in CTE pathways.
• Build educator capacity to integrate global competence and project management into CTE career exploration and classroom projects.

Check out the toolkit here.
Katie Fitzgerald, Senior Associate, Communications