Career and Technical education (CTE) in South Dakota is anchored in four institutions located around the state: Lake Area Technical Institute in Watertown, Mitchell Technical Institute in Mitchell, Southeast Technical Institute in Sioux Falls and Western Dakota Technical Institute in Rapid City.

Enrollment at those four institutes has increased by 14 percent over the past five years, a trend officials attribute to the increased role of technical education in K-12 education particularly high school, and a struggling economy, which has pushed some non-traditional students out of the work force and back to school.

Advocates for career and technical education have long-touted it as a model of education that efficiently builds a community’s work force because of the focused job-related skills students learn in a condensed amount of time. CTE also serves as a supplement for additional training and degrees, which have become more relevant as the economy dipped during the last several years.

According to 2010 South Dakota CTE placement reports, 97 percent of 2008 graduates of the state's Tech schools are employed, with 70 percent of students working in their chosen field in South Dakota. For some areas of expertise, those numbers are even higher. According to the same report, 100 percent of respondents in the finance career cluster reported employment in their field of study and 97 percent in agriculture, food and natural resources also found jobs in their area of study. For more information on CTE in South Dakota, including enrollment and placement data for individual institutions, click here.