Lifelong Learning and Competitiveness – A View from Corporate America and the Nation’s Governors

I caught an interesting discussion last weekend on US Workforce Skills and Competitiveness on CSPAN.  As part of the  Governor’s Association Meeting, Governor Tim Kaine (D-Virginia), and Vice-Chair of the Education, Early Childhood & Workforce Committee hosted a televised session including presentations from executives from TPI-Composites, a manufacturing entity, and Microsoft. Interesting insight for colleges and universities programs serving adult learners.

States Competing for Industry - The Incentives Have Changed

Governor Kaine began the discussion by outlining the changes in how his state is competing for new industry. The game used to be played by states offering the best incentive deal to entice companies. According to Governor Kaine, the push now from companies is all about the competitiveness of the workforce ahead of incentives.

Preparing a Generation of Green Workers

Stepehn Lockard of TPI Composites discussed his company’s role in supporting the green jobs movement specifically in the area of wind energy. Composite materials are constructed through a hands-on molds and resin process, requiring technical specialists.  When I worked in the corporate world, I saw the molds and resin process to build boat hulls. To move the green energy movement forward, companies such as TPI Composites will need technical specialists, environmental experts, and highly skilled workers for research and development.

‘Knowledge Fresh’ Workers

Microsoft’s Pamela Passman discussed the need for a pipeline of prepared students with skill sets ranging from basic computer skills to higher level software architecture. Ms. Passman underscored the need to keep our workforce knowledge fresh as new innovations will power the future economy. According to her statistics, by 2014 - 70% of jobs will require higher level analytic and technical skills.

Opportunities for Professional and Continuing Education Units

In response to a question on transitioning white collar workers, Passman encouraged regional collaboration between schools, government, and industry to: 1) Assess regional job loss, 2) Determine the emerging or underserved needs, and 3)identify what are the skills needed (e.g. green, healthcare). From there, develop scalable education programs.

Sounds like a job for Professional and Continuing Education.

New Microsoft Elevate America Program

Microsoft took the opportunity to announce it’s new Elevate America Program, offering Microsoft training and software certification opportunities, including some 1 million learning vouchers or coupons for low cost training and certification. Great idea, great marketing.

For more information, visit their portal at www.microsoft.com/elevateamerica.com.

Comments

[Brooks Masterson]

The folks at CAEL (www.cael.org) are doing a lot of research around this topic. There are some good stats on their website around the widening gap between skilled workers and skilled jobs. The picture is staggering as many states will have a gap of 500k+ within a decade. As Tim mentions, this creates a tremendous opportunity for Adult and CE programs out there, but this also makes their current challenges even tougher. That is, educating this market and getting it to believe that everyone can get a higher education of some kind. Many do not believe they can get financial aid, find the time to attend classes or just fit into an academic setting in general.

[Tim Copeland]

Hi Brooks, thanks for your comments and the information.

[Jim Fong]

Brooks -- I'd be interested in your thoughts on how do you see colleges and universities leveraging this opportunity. Is it a "for each is to his own" or in other words, that colleges and universities need to assess what their specific opportunities and markets are? I'd say personally, that while the forecast is generally favorable for continuing and professional education (although distribution of funding may not be from a corporate standpoint), that colleges and universities tend to fail on communicating value and in many cases ... communicating at all.

[Ryan Satterfield]

Tim -- great viewpoint on this very staggering trend. From a high school perspective, more specifically from a career and technical viewpoint, we are already feeling the demands from industry to fill these high skilled jobs. Career pathways and Career Academies are just two of the more popular "buzz words" and ideas that school districts are implementing. As you certinaly know, colleges are having to re-visit some of their academic programs and many have focused their recruiting efforts on adult learners going back to school to obtain these "new" skills that our global economy so desperately seeks.