A Quiet Revolution: Growth of Credentialed-Based Manufacturing Education in Florida

Nationally, the revolution to include industry-driven and validated credentials in the mainstream manufacturing education platforms has barely begun, but educators and industry are digging in to find common grounds to use these tools to help close the growing manufacturing skills gap more efficiently and effectively. Serious conversations about using nationally recognized, third party validated, industry credentials to support career and technical education programs in Florida began early in the second half of the first decade of the twenty-first century. This paper discusses Florida initiatives that illustrate the evolution of aligning industry validated manufacturing skills based credentials with technical education programs in Florida.