An innovative job-creation program at Central Piedmont Community College will be highlighted in a CNN special at 8 p.m. Sunday.

“Global Lessons, Putting America to Work” focuses in part on an apprenticeship program between CPCC and Siemens.

Under the program, CPCC students not only earn money by working for the high-tech company, but their tuition is paid.

Host Fareed Zakaria introduces us to Hope Johnson, a high school honor student who decided against going to a traditional four-year university and sought a technical education instead. At the Charlotte Siemens plant, she makes components for power plants.

“Attitudes toward blue-collar work will have to change,” says Zakaria, pointing out that manufacturing jobs of the future will come from high-tech sectors where there is a demand for a highly skilled workforce. Charlotte’s program is one of those that is doing it right, he says.

Zakaria takes us around the world looking at ways the United States can compete better for job creation in construction, nanotech and manufacturing sectors.

In Germany, he says, programs like CPCC’s have been part of society for centuries. More than half of young Germans participate in apprentice programs as companies, trade unions, vocational schools and the government aim to teach workers skills for industries as diverse as bakeries and nuclear energy.

“Here in the U.S., our patchwork system of job training programs is why we have 3.5 million job openings,” says Zakaria, who writes on global economic issues for Time magazine.

Zakaria says the United States needs to streamline regulation and cut corporate taxes to become more competitive and address the loss of nearly 6 million jobs in manufacturing. He’s also a proponent of government subsidies, noting that the shipbuilding industry in the U.S. has all but vanished since subsidies were eliminated in the 1980s, while South Korea became the world’s No. 1 shipbuilder with government underwriting.

Media Movers

WCNC (Channel 36) hires Chris Clark as sports director, replacing Greg Bailey, who returned to his native Texas with a job at a Houston station. Clark comes to Charlotte from Atlanta, where he was in the sports department of the Fox affiliate. … Interview of the week: WSOC’s (Channel 9) Mark Becker asks the mother of the man accused of robbing stores while wearing a Frankenstein mask, “Is your son a monster?” Sherry Jefferies was a good sport, explaining that her homeless son had a history of mental illness and trouble with the law. “We knew that when you’re out on the street there are basically two options – jail or the grave – and as much as I hate seeing him in and out of jail, it’s much easier to visit him there than to visit a grave.” …

WTVI (Channel 42) will carry programming 1-8 p.m. Saturday for “American Graduate Day,” which seeks a solution to the nation’s dropout crisis. Among the local programs to be highlighted are Communities In Schools, Project L.I.F.T., CPCC’s Career and College Promise and the Mecklenburg PTA Council, says WTVI project coordinator Beverly Dorn-Steele.