Career and Technical Education (CTE) Concentrator Programs

Career and Technical Education (CTE) concentrator programs are sequences of high school courses aligned to specific career fields (such as manufacturing, education and training, finance, health sciences, etc.) that provide students with academic and technical skills to succeed in college or the workforce. A CTE concentrator is a student who completes a sequence of courses aligned to a specific career cluster—in Nebraska, three or more credits in a single career cluster; in South Dakota, at least two credits in a state-approved sequence within a single career cluster. The programs are delivered through regular high school coursework over multiple years, typically spanning grades 9-12. Students select from 16 career clusters in the National Career Clusters Framework. The intervention requires existing school infrastructure and teaching staff already in place for CTE programming.