PURPOSE OF TECH PREP

Tech Prep Mission Statement

Tech Prep in Idaho supports the mission of the Idaho Division of Professional-Technical Education by providing an equal opportunity for all students to follow a plan of study connecting high school and college courses that leads to successful performance in a highly effective workplace.

Tech Prep Overview

Like stepping stones, Tech Prep leads a student from high school, to technical training, to college degrees, and finally to career opportunities.  Tech Prep is a combined effort between high schools and professional-technical colleges to provide students with a seamless education that will lead them to the development of a high level of technical career skills. This is done through career guidance activities in the secondary school and through articulation agreements between secondary and post-secondary programs where students can accumulate college credits before they leave high school.

Essential Elements of Tech Prep

Tech Prep programs are most successful when they are highly structured and employ the elements of Tech Prep. Those elements include agreements between high schools and post-secondary institutions, career counseling, development of new curricula with the integration of math, science and communications along with a program design that includes at least two years of high school courses plus two or more years of post-secondary study.  Specifically, Tech Prep programs should focus on the following essential elements:

  1. Problem Solving and Critical Thinking Skills
  2. Effective Communication
  3. Appropriate Use of Technology
  4. Development of Responsible Work Habits
  5. Career Planning6.Management of Personal Time and Resources

It is very important that your construction technology program articulate to your partnering pos-secondary school.  Articulation to more than one post-secondary construction program is a good idea.  Here are the steps in developing good articulations.