By MAX GARLAND
Charleston Gazette-Mail
WHITE SULPHUR SPRINGS, W.Va. — West Virginia education leaders said Thursday preparing students for the workforce through hands-on training, particularly for in-demand jobs in the technology and engineering sectors, and more Department of Commerce involvement is key for the state to catch up with the rest of the country.
(Gazette-Mail photo by Max Garland)
“Being 47th, 48th or whatever it is in education is very disheartening,” said Senate Education Chairman Kenny Mann, R-Monroe, in a panel at the West Virginia Chamber of Commerce’s 81st annual Meeting & Business Summit, held at The Greenbrier resort. “We’re going to have to make bold decisions, and we’re going to have to offer things and come to the table with ideas that no other state is doing to stand out just a bit.”
Ideas at the panel, called “Preparing Students for the 21st Century Workforce – A Higher Education Perspective,” revolved around workforce development. Sarah Tucker, chancellor of the state’s Community and Technical College System, said more opportunities for students to embed themselves into a company is something the state’s community colleges are pushing for.
“It’s essential in this changing economy, particularly in the field of IT [Information Technology], where technology is changing rapidly every six months,” Tucker said. “The only way to keep up is to have students embedded into companies.”
West Virginia ranks 44th in technology sector employment and 49th in average wage for technology jobs, according to a 2016 report from the Computing Technology Industry Association, a non-profit trade association. Although career preparation is a common goal for higher education institutions, it’s an urgent need in West Virginia considering the state’s aging workforce, according to Tucker. She said community colleges are working with the Department of Commerce and WorkForce West Virginia to implement more on-the-job training for students.
West Virginia could stand to gain more students in two-year higher education technical programs, State Schools Superintendent Steve Paine said. He said a degree from one of these programs should soon satisfy the majority of job creators in the country, adding that colleges should prepare for possible industries that will locate to West Virginia in five to ten years, such as technology businesses.
“There is no reason our kids can’t be computer scientists or engineers like any of the other kids in the world,” Paine said.
But these plans will have trouble progressing if the state neglects spending on higher education, said Sen. Robert Plymale, D-Wayne.
“If [workforce preparation] is a priority, and such an urgent priority that the chamber puts us on a panel, we cannot be reducing money to higher education,” Plymale said. “I supported building roads and things like that, and now it’s time for us to focus on our education and workforce. We have to make an investment.”
A report recently published by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities said West Virginia was one of 13 states to cut higher education funding this year.
Mann expressed similar sentiments earlier in the panel, saying the state “must see education as a long-term investment.”
Schools and teachers frequently bring up the mental health of students as a specific area the state should invest in, according to Mann. He said he discussed with Sen. Ed Gaunch, R-Kanawha, about the possibility of a bill that “basically puts a psychologist in every school to work toward our mental health problem,” but added that it wasn’t feasible for the state this year financially.
In a separate speech, West Virginia University President Gordon Gee said the state suffers from a “negative elitism” that embeds a fear of failure in students.
“Any psychologist will tell you that a child growing up with ridicule and shame will start to look down on themselves,” he said. “We in West Virginia have believed in our own bad press for so long, and we have manifested headlines into reality that begets only more negative press.”
WVU partnered with Marshall University and the state’s Department of Commerce to commission a study of short-term and large-scale projects to boosts the state’s economy. The study, which was conducted by McKinsey & Company, will be released in full in mid-September.
None of the panelists mentioned the recent financial sanctions imposed on West Virginia’s public colleges after the state submitted an audit of incoming federal money late for the third consecutive year. Tucker recently told an interim legislative committee that the sanctions could hinder community colleges in launching workforce-related programs.
Reach Max Garland at [email protected], 304-348-4886 or follow @MaxGarlandTypes on Twitter.
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