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Columbus County Schools’ recent top five ranking in the state for career-technical students is good news for those who will soon enter the workforce.

The schools’ most recent end-of-grade test scores put the system as the top-ranking system in southeastern North Carolina and fifth in the state.

What used to be called vocational education is important. Not everyone needs or wants to go to college, but everyone deserves to an education that will get them a good job. That’s what career-technical education does.

Here’s a smattering of the programs that the system offers: cabinet making, welding, masonry, construction technology, computer engineering, landscape construction and maintenance, agri-science, small business and entrepreneurship, computerized accounting, business and financial management, early childhood education, culinary arts, health team relations and allied health.

In many cases, what students start in high school can be finished or honed at Southeastern Community College.

It seems the catch-word in economic development is high tech, but the reality is that most high-tech jobs are based around the state’s metropolitan areas. That’s not to say that Columbus County can’t or shouldn’t be prepared to provide skilled workers for high-tech industry, but with the need for masons, construction workers, bookkeepers and health care professionals, career-technical education gets students on the fast track for jobs.

Another key is that many of the students who finish these programs will remain in Columbus County to live, though many will commute to the beaches where employers are begging for workers, and, as a result, pay good wages.

What’s unfortunate, though, is that the state Department of Public Instruction is de-emphasizing career-technical education, instead guiding curricula under the pie-in-the-sky premise that every student will go to college.

One need only look around Columbus County to see that some of the most successful people are those who are talented mechanics, plumbers, cabinet makers, and other service providers.

Many got their start in the public schools and excelled because they had excellent teachers who inspired them.

There are more than 3,500 students in the county career-technical education program.

The most recent test scores affirm that the schools are doing their best to train students for the realities of the working world.