Gov. Deval Patrick wants to get people back to work by unifying community colleges in the state and he won’t take no for an answer.
Patrick spoke at an information session between lawmakers and cabinet members yesterday to stress his view that the state’s 15 community colleges can play a bigger role in filling a “skills gap,” according to the State House News Service.
“The people who have been out of work, they are not going back to the job they used to have because the economy is changing,” Patrick said.
Patrick is proposing to match the more than 240,000 people looking for work with skills needed to fill open jobs.
According to Patrick, to do that, there needs to be an integrated and unified work force pipeline.
The governor’s proposal would increase state funding for community colleges while calling on business to raise private funds for schools.
Dozens of lawmakers, including Secretary of Housing and Economic Development Greg Bialecki and Secretary of Labor and Workforce Development Joanne Goldstein, weighed in on the proposal.
Filling the gap
Patrick said he wants the colleges to play a bigger roll in filling the “skills gap.”
He said 120,000 available jobs are left open because workers do not have the skills to fill them.
