Career Clusters provide students with a context for studying traditional academics and learning the skills specific to a career, and provide U.S. schools with a structure for organizing or restructuring curriculum offerings and focusing class make-up by a common theme such as interest.
The nonprofit Vocational Research Institute adapted an interest and aptitude assessment, Careerscope, to help students choose curriculum and careers for which they have both interest and aptitude - at the cluster, pathway and career specialty levels.
The Career Cluster initiative began in 1996 in the U.S. as the Building Linkages Initiative and was a collaborative effort between the U.S. Department of Education, the Office of Vocational and Adult Education (OVAE), the National School-to-Work Office (NSTWO) and the National Skill Standards Board (NSSB).
The creation of curricular models within the context of broad career clusters ensures the alignment of academic and technical instructional strategies with the requirements of post-secondary education and the expectations of employers in increasingly academic and technologically demanding careers.
The vocational education field has historically responded to the needs of the national economy by preparing individuals for in-demand jobs.