Whereas workplace changes have profoundly altered and increased the skills required of workers and managers; andWhereas schools are struggling to improve the basic skills of the school-age population drawn increasingly from 'at risk' households where children tend to leave school early; andWhereas many noncollege-bound youth, especially women and minorities, spend their first years after high school unemployed or job-hopping from one low-skills job to another, with a consequent loss in productivity and access to career-oriented learning; andWhereas most new jobs that will be created in the 1990s will require some postsecondary education; andWhereas the economic position of 'The Forgotten Half' - noncollege-bound high school graduates - is deteriorating, with real earnings declining by twenty-eight percent (28%) from 1973 to 1986, while the earnings of college graduates have risen; andWhereas most employers in the United States lack a tradition of strong employee training;Now, therefore, the State of Arkansas has determined that the establishment of a youth apprenticeship program can contribute significantly to addressing these problems by providing Arkansas's noncollege-bound efore, the State of Arkansas has determined that the establishment of a youth apprenticeship program can contribute significantly to addressing these problems by providing Arkansas's noncollege-bound young people with additional opportunities to develop meaningful job skills.Acts 1991, No. 546, § 1; 1991, No. 553, § 1.
Arkansas Legal Code