Friday, December 10, 1999
Area told to get tech college
Warning: Train our workers
BY ANDREA TORTORA
The Cincinnati Enquirer
HIGHLAND HEIGHTS — Northern Kentucky will be left in the dust if the region does not create a community-technical college to bolster the technological savvy of its work force, a national expert said Thursday.
“The realities of what we got back from employer surveys is this area is stuck in the industrial age,” said Dennis Jones, whose study was released Wednesday.
If Northern Kentucky does not train workers in the latest technologies, the region will become home to low-paying distribution warehouse jobs, said Mr. Jones, of the National Center for Higher Education Management in Boulder, Colo.
Surveys of 250 employers in Boone, Campbell and Kenton counties, and 100 employers in five southern counties, including Grant and Pendleton, found:
• Almost 40 percent do not believe there is a qualified work force to meet their needs in the next five years.
• Almost 40 percent are experiencing high turnover, losing workers to better-paying jobs in nearby areas.
• More than 42 percent of 2,800 jobs forecast in the next two years will require a high school diploma.
• Fewer than 20 percent of new employees have a two- year or four-year college degree.
• More than two-thirds of new employees have a high-school diploma or GED.
“I think there is certainly a critical mass of employers who have higher expectations, and so far they've been able to make it by dipping into someone else's employee pool,” Mr. Jones said.
But that strategy only goes so far, he said.
Partnerships among Northern Kentucky University, Kentucky's Community and Technical College System and Cincinnati State Technical and Community College will help serve educational needs.
“We are creating a new model here,” said Michael McCall, KCTCS president. “There is no preconceived notion of what this will look like eight years from now. We don't know.”
Residents can expect expansions of what's already being offered at the Urban Learning Center in Covington and the three campuses of the Northern Kentucky Technical College.
NKU President James Votruba said he sees this venture as fulfilling the university's mission for the next century.
“We have to move faster because we have some catching up to do, especially when others are moving as fast,” Dr. Votruba said.
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