LEESBURG, Va. — The ASE Education Foundation recently rolled out an apprenticeship pilot program that pairs high school and college automotive students with a trained mentor and gives them real-world experience while still in school.
Students in the program work in a functioning repair shop and follow a structured development plan, the foundation said. The program was created to address the skills gap by allowing students to learn the workplace culture, build competence and increase productivity before graduation.
ASE Education Foundation vice president George Arrants presented the program during the recent ASE Training Managers Council (ATMC) conference.
"In light of the trends we're seeing when it comes to recruiting and retention within the industry, we really appreciate the opportunity to present our apprenticeship pilot program to the ATMC conference attendees," Mike Coley, ASE Education Foundation president, said.
"We had some productive discussions and received feedback and ideas that will assist us as we develop and implement programs that help prepare the next generation of the automotive service workforce."
The ATMC also released the results from its annual survey on training benchmarks within the auto and heavy-vehicle service and repair industry. The survey is conducted to establish a series of metrics to help the industry recognize trends, provide a comparison standard and align the offerings of training providers with the needs of training consumers, ATMC said.