WHAT IS TECH PREP?

"Tech Prep is college prep for technical careers!"

What is Tech Prep Course Credit?

Tech Prep programs provide valuable education, technical skills and specialized training for all Texas youth. Through an innovative combination of high school classroom study and real-world work experience, Tech-Prep students receive valuable skills and technical training that prepare them to enter the world of work sooner, better educated, and better trained. Tech-Prep students start learning technical skills and earning college credit while they are still in high school. Highly versatile, challenging, hands-on, and responsive to current trends in local industry, Tech-Prep programs combine the academic courses needed for success in school with the technical courses that begin to prepare students for a career.

Tech-Prep Course Credit has proven results. Research shows that Tech-Prep students have higher attendance rates, higher graduation rates, lower dropout rates, and go on to college at higher rates than their peers. And further, that Tech-Prep works for under-represented and at-risk students.

Tech Prep is a rigorous technical and academic curriculum that includes:

+4 years of high school

+2 years of college

=6-year Tech Prep Associate Degree

The resulting Tech Prep Associate Degree is available at Amarillo College and other Texas community and technical colleges.

A Tech Prep Associate Degree prepares students to go straight to work, pursue a bachelor degree, or, as is becoming more and more common, both.

Tech Prep is a partnership between education and business that prepares young people for today's skilled workforce. This partnership involves high schools, colleges, large and small businesses and governmental agencies - all working together!

Tech Prep relies on the business/education connection to design job-specific curricula to prepare students for occupations currently in demand and for those projected to be in demand.

Tech Prep meets the "Learning for Earning" needs of the middle 50% of students.

Tech Prep includes the following key components:

Joint staff development activities for secondary and postsecondary teachers, counselors and administrators

Joint state agency approval process for Tech Prep programs (6-year plans)