East Bay Economic Development Alliance > Action Items > Workforce - Education
Board of Directors' Retreat Discussion, April 11, 2008
• Workforce Development lead by Ken Mercer
Challenge: K-12 and higher education will incur significant revenue losses thereby eroding the capacity to meet the region’s education and training needs. The State’s year of “educational reform” appears to be put on hold. Federal and State workforce development resources are limited so they have less available resources to support workers displaced by layoffs or to provide training resources for workers entering the job market Opportunity: Re-authorization of the Workforce Investment program may be more feasible as the Federal government examines ways to stimulate the economy. Special grants for business/education partnerships and academies may become available to meet projected workforce shortages in emerging technology sectors as well as meet the shortages in traditional sectors due to increasing workforce retirements.
Staff: Robert Sakai, Technology & Trade Director
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Work Group Notes: • When Baby Boomers retire in the next few years, 30% of the workforce will disappear. • There is not enough training to make up for the loss. • The way we teach and what we teach is inadequate. There is a lack of fit between education and job requirements 2. Recession.
Due to the recession workers are losing jobs and companies are going
out of business • Methods need to be found to make education more relevant to jobs. • In order to engage students in adult work, they need to be motivated about jobs and begin to prepare in middle school when they are making course choices that will have major impacts on their occupational choices • More organizations should follow the lead of the Tri-Valley Business Council, working with school superintendants and principals to help make the curriculum more relevant and asking businesses to help engage students by hosting field trips, etc. 4. Dropouts - The bottom 25% of students who don’t graduate from high school need the most help, but tend to be the most neglected. They need: • Programs to encourage employers to hire high school dropouts • More opportunities for on-the-job training for high school dropouts
We need to take advantage of this “once in a decade” opportunity to spur the economy, create jobs and get kids with blue collar education and training interested in pursuing green collar jobs. East Bay EDA should: • Generate a “pathways” program for this industry • Showcase opportunities in the green economy by: o Identifying/highlighting/marketing the companies in this industry
o Highlighting/marketing the green technologies, activities and
accomplishments at the
This page will soon be integrated into an interactive page that will allow members to login and comment/add to the discussion of these topics. Please stay tuned for these changes. Please contact Bob Sakai with any suggestions you have in the mean time at 510-272-3881 or send an email to robert@eastbayeda.org |