It was obviously a bit of self-promotion, as Luzerne County Community College set up and hosted a “workforce development summit” Wednesday morning with a panel that included LCCC grads and administration as well as politicians who have long voiced support of the school. But even so, a lot of important points came out that we as a region and nation would be wise to heed.
For starters, LCCC alumnus Brian Tylutke, now pursuing an engineering degree at Penn State Hazleton, stressed the need to get more students interested in the STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) fields if we are to remain economically competitive. Tylutke waxed eloquently and accurately in suggesting more students should be pushed a little out of their comfort zones and given a taste of the challenge science classwork requires, particularly math.
“We have to tell them that calculus is the way to explain the physical world without using words,” he said.
U.S. Rep. Matt Cartwright conceded government efforts have been making a much-needed pivot in policy, switching from an older goal of luring jobs to an area to the new need for training those in an area to handle new jobs. He cited the early days of the shale fracking boom in the northern part of Pennsylvania as proof of concept, when lots of jobs were created but many of the best went to out-of-state transplants who came with needed skills.
“It was as clear as the nose on your face that the people weren’t from here and the money wasn’t staying here. All we were left with were holes in the ground.”
Erica Campbell, from Geisinger Health Care, warned “there are never going to be enough nurses to care for our elderly population,” and said one solution has been to make sure each worker is performing at the top of their professional licensing. If you have a shortage of registered nurses, it helps to make sure they are not doing work that doesn’t require their licensing level. So Geisinger, like other providers, is expanding the use of Certified Nursing Assistants, Licensed Practical Nurses, and all the other levels of health care jobs available.
All of which falls under the broad reality that most of the panelists pointed to: We need to make sure post-secondary education and training is widely and economically available if we want to fill the jobs of both now and tomorrow. As Cartwright noted, today’s largest companies are built around technologies that didn’t exist 20 or even 10 years ago. It makes little sense to believe the education system that worked so well 50 years ago in fueling the economy will do just as well moving forward.
“If we don’t do everything to inspire young people to go into these fields, we’re shooting ourselves in our feet,” Cartwright said, perhaps stretching a bit far to morph a single metaphor into the collective plural.
But he’s right. They are all right. And as the future economy of high tech, big data, block-chain, online-everything, artificial intelligence and virtual/augmented/mixed reality rapidly unfolds, community colleges and similar institutions are increasingly becoming the logical go-to transition for further education. They can be flexible in offering college credits to high school students, quick certifications for entry level jobs after high school, full associates degrees, lower and mid-level professional licensing, and affordable two-year stepping stones to bachelors, masters or doctorates.
The days a high school diploma is enough for life are long gone. Figuring out how best to make education more seamless from high school into additional (and ongoing) learning is essential. Being the first to get that transition right will put any county, state or nation ahead of the curve.
— Times Leader
