From daemon Mon Jun 12 10:00 EDT 1995 Received: from PSTCC4.PSTCC.CC.TN.US (PSTCC4.PSTCC.CC.TN.US [198.146.192.11]) by town.hall.org (8.6.12/941123.08ccg) with ESMTP id JAA00454 for ; Mon, 12 Jun 1995 09:55:57 -0400 Received: from pstcc.cc.tn.us by pstcc.cc.tn.us (PMDF V4.2-11 #7176) id <01HRM43YFL4W8WXKDR@pstcc.cc.tn.us>; Mon, 12 Jun 1995 09:57:50 EDT From: LBOGATY@pstcc.cc.tn.us Date: Mon, 12 Jun 1995 09:57:50 -0400 (EDT) Subject: 21st Century Jobs To: JEC@TOWN.HALL.ORG Message-id: <01HRM43YFL4Y8WXKDR@pstcc.cc.tn.us> X-VMS-To: IN%"JEC@TOWN.HALL.ORG" X-VMS-Cc: LBOGATY MIME-version: 1.0 Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; CHARSET=US-ASCII Content-Length: 3399 Status: RO As the global job market decreases the lifespan of jobs, it becomes even more critical that a national policy designed to address lifelong learning needs of all of our citizens throughout their working careers be developed, implemented and adequately supported at ALL levels of government. The current practice of spending only 15% of our educational dollars on learning after the age of 24 is no longer prudent. The average American will change CAREERS, not just positions, 10 times during their working life. We MUST develop ways of assuring they can receive the training and education they need to make those changes in a timely, fair and cost effective manner. You folks in Washington will have to take the lead on this if it is going to happen because unless it is a national inititative, job mobility will create the same sort of nightmare "robbing from Peter to pay Paul" policy we now have in economic development initiatives, where South Carolina pays $100,000 per job to rob Michigan of 250 currently needed automotive manufacturing jobs-and then 10 years down the road, Mississippi will pay $150,000 to rob South Carolina. It is a zero sum game, folks, as far as the nation is concerned. What I would like to see happen is a NATIONAL policy to provide training opportunities where the workers ARE at times they can take advantage of them. At the risk of sounding like a TV serial "We have the technology." Between internet resources, the Community College network, the skills standards that are being developed and diseminated by the NSF and ALL the studies that have been done on skills needs, it is time to go beyond the talk stage. Every community has a library, every community has a school of some sort (most used only from 8-3), and every community has television. Lets begin using these resources to provide what every community now lacks - comprehensive training programs for ALL citizens. It is sad to see a nation as rich as we are invest so heavily in every resource except our most important one -people. The "one stop shop" is an idea whose time has come. IMPLEMENT IT. The Skills Standards projects, projects that will have to be continuously redone to reflect changing job needs, need to be widely dissemenated and made what they are - a national resource to improve the competitiveness of our nation by improving ths skills of our people. The vast infrastructure we have for delivering training and education needs to be USED. Global thinkers need to look at how we can use what we have to deliver what we need. There is more bricks and mortar, more expertise, and more technology than we even need to train our people. However, we have failed to use if for these purposes because we cannot see outside the boxes we have constrained ourselves with: "Elementary schools are for elementary students" "internet is for advanced learners" "Libraries house books." The most important thing we MUST do, if we are to successfully compete in an international market is look at differernt ways of defining learning, look a different ways of delivering instruction and change the paradigm of education from something we do for our children to something we do for our PEOPLE. Thanks for listening. Lisa Bogaty Dean of Applied Sciences and Technology Director of the Workforce Innovation Center of Emphasis Pellissippi State Technical Community College.