SkillsUSA
About SkillsUSA
SkillsUSA is a national membership association serving high school, college, and middle school students who are preparing for careers in trade, technical, and skilled service occupations, including health occupations, and for further education. SkillsUSA is a partnership of students, teachers, and industries, working together to ensure America has a skilled workforce.
Mission:
SkillsUSA empowers its members to become world-class workers, leaders and responsible American citizens. SkillsUSA improves the quality of our nation’s future skilled workforce through the development of Framework skills that include personal, workplace and technical skills grounded in academics.
Vision:
SkillsUSA produces the most highly skilled workforce in the world, providing every member the opportunity for career success.
Programs:
SkillsUSA offers local, state and national opportunities for students to learn and practice personal, workplace and technical skills. These three components comprise the SkillsUSA Framework, a blueprint for career readiness. Local chapters conduct a full program of work and many students also attend a district or state conference. At the SkillsUSA Championships, more than 6,500 students compete in more than 105 occupational and leadership skill areas each June. These national technical competitions help establish industry standards for job skill training and entry-level workers. SkillsUSA is recognized by the U.S. Department of Education as a successful model of employer-driven youth development training.
Five Big Things Made Possible by SkillsUSA
Nationwide Network of students and instructors in a common bond with industry. We’ve grown from 26 state and territorial associations to 53 and served over 13.5 million annual members total since 1965. More than 600 businesses, corporations, trade associations and labor unions are partners at the national level alone, with thousands more supporting at state and local levels.
Employability and Leadership Training with award-winning curricula, such as the Professional Development Program (now SkillsUSA Career Essentials: Experiences), in support of our Program of Work. Our training, in more than 17,500 classrooms, provides applied instruction and opportunities for CTE students to lead as officers and serve as chapter members.
Civically Engaged chapters conduct thousands of community service activities every year, using their occupational and leadership skills to benefit their neighbors, hometowns and the nation. CTE students gain public respect and an understanding of civic responsibility. Students also experience the exhilaration of helping others as they become Champions at Work.
Skilled Workforce. Our association addresses both the skills gap and skilled worker shortages through programs such as the SkillsUSA Championships and industry-driven SkillsUSA Career Essentials: Assessments. We serve 130 occupational titles that represent one-quarter of all jobs in the nation. Our work is very much about building America’s future workforce.
Representing Career and Technical Education. From local school boards to governors and statehouses and all the way to Washington, D.C., SkillsUSA continues to send a long line of red blazers to talk with policymakers, legislators and the news media about the purpose of career education and it's importance to students and employers. Our students are the “face” of CTE.
Impact of SkillsUSA
In 1965, 200 students, teachers and administrators held a conference at a hotel in Nashville, Tenn. In founding the Vocational Industrial Clubs of America, their goal was to establish a nationwide organization to represent trade and industrial education and to serve student needs.
Now, SkillsUSA changes lives every day. Students discover and grow their career passions and appreciate their own self-worth through the work and dedication of instructors, administrators, association directors, industry partners and alumni.
We continue to reach toward the founders’ vision, but –– bottom line –– our core purpose is the same: to help instructors reach and engage their students so their students will succeed.
SkillsUSA is privileged to serve students, schools, colleges and industry, and the most inspiring instructors and administrators in American education.