𝗧𝗛𝗘 𝗖𝗢𝗡𝗧𝗜𝗡𝗨𝗜𝗡𝗚 𝗦𝗔𝗚𝗔 𝗢𝗙 𝗜𝗡𝗔𝗗𝗘𝗤𝗨𝗔𝗧𝗘 𝗩𝗢𝗖𝗔𝗧𝗜𝗢𝗡𝗔𝗟 𝗧𝗥𝗔𝗜𝗡𝗜𝗡𝗚 𝗔𝗧 𝗧𝗦𝗖'𝗦 𝗜𝗧𝗘𝗖 𝗔𝗡𝗗 𝗖𝗧𝗘

 

I just got off the phone with a young man who spent two years in vocational education in welding at CTE, that is, Career and Technology Education, 1351 E. Polk, Brownsville, TX, the old Cummings Middle School.

The young man had been referred to my article on the ineptitude of vocational education at ITEC, the vocational training facility of Texas Southmost College currently under the direction of Thomas Tynan.

The former student described his training at CTE as inadequate, indicating that his instructor, Luis Matillas, spent "all day" in the office, leaving the students to practice with welding equipment without the benefit of hands-on training.

Still, the student did learn to weld, albeit, mostly on his own and did take the welding test at Texas Southmost College on May 19, 2021 and passed.

The students, he said, were promised American Welding Society certificates if they passed the test, but, instead were only given Texas Southmost College Certificates of Completion.

The reality was that TSC was not accredited to issue AWS certificates until August 2022.

So, when this student tried to use the TSC Certificate of Completion to get a job, he was told repeatedly that it was a worthless document and that he would not be hired without an AWS certificate.

Just recently, the former TSC/ITEC welding student did get a job, not as a welder, but as an apprentice in another field.