Lincoln Land Community College in Springfield, IL will partner with the State of Illinois’ Department of Innovation and Technology (DoIT) to train skilled technical workers in that state. By itself, this is not interesting. Every state wants to do this. In this case, however, the state will recruit paid trainees to enroll in the program. The trainees will make a minimum of $54,000 per year while enrolled.
That makes the program a lot more interesting.
Every state is looking for more workers with technical skills, but simply offering the training/educational opportunities is not enough. Prospective students have already heard the horror stories about the cost of education, and the amount of debt that traditional students have been saddled with after completing a degree program.
As-is, community colleges are also not a viable solution for most people, since they do not often result in living wage job opportunities after completion. And, while the desire to rush people into the workforce is understandable, providing half-baked “training” doesn’t help either the technical worker or the employer.
Putting students in a work environment where they can accumulate hands-on experience, and also placing them in an educational environment where they can learn what they need to know to be successful long-term seems like a fundamentally better approach.
The DoIT program, which was announced earlier this week, seeks to recruit technical workers into one of five high-need areas: coding and database, cybersecurity, end-user computing, enterprise infrastructure, and networking. According to Illinois governor JB Pritzker, the program will expand to additional tracks in the future. Students who complete the program will be offered employment with DoIT.
Lincoln Land Community College has developed the initial curriculum and will provide one of the program’s two training sites. Each cohort will be limited initially to 20 students.
Training technical workers requires a new approach
State agencies typically have trouble recruiting technical workers, often because they pay less than the market rate. That causes productivity problems for the agencies and also generates high turnover. The DoIT program hopes to short-circuit some of these challenges. DoIT also says it will offer additional cohorts as needed at the training sites. (City Colleges of Chicago is the other site where the program will be offered.)
LLCC has not indicated how long the training program takes to complete, but there is no requirement that program participants work for the State of Illinois. The portability of the training and the salaried nature of the program may make it more likely that the program participants can successfully complete the required coursework and move into the workforce full time.
It’s going to take programs like this to rehabilitate the role of the community college. As long as community colleges remain mired in the strategy of providing low-cost, low-value training for existing local employers, they will remain a last-resort option for the workforce.
Photo Credit: Gartzi Deustu
