SC Technical College System and New Carolina Tie Workforce Development to Clusters

SC Technical College System and New Carolina Tie Workforce Development to Clusters
New Report Outlines Roadmap for South Carolina’s Future Workforce

SC Technical College System and New Carolina-South Carolina’s Council on Competitiveness recently released Developing South Carolina’s Workforce: A Roadmap for the Future (Roadmap for the Future),which outlines the findings of the first comprehensive discussion tying workforce development to economic clusters in South Carolina.

The report can be downloaded at the New Carolina website.

Roadmap for the Future reports recommendations from participants in a research project initiated by the Southern Growth Policies Board, and presented by the SC Technical College System and New Carolina.

Southern Growth’s goal is to define practical recommendations to build workforces that efficiently support southern states’ economic initiatives. The SC Technical College System and New Carolina built on that mission by hosting Panel Discussions and Community Forums around the state that focused on identifying both general and specific economic cluster workforce needs, and providing recommendations for future development. Key themes outlined by participants from the Statewide Policy Dialogue and the six Panel Discussions and Community Forums ranged from:

· the need to develop comprehensive statewide workforce solutions

· concerns about the consistent need for funding innovative initiatives

· a sense that the involvement of the entire educational continuum – pre-K through 16 – is critical

· a sense of the increasing need for “soft skill” development in general workforce training—e.g., problem solving, critical thinking, communication, working as a team, etc.

· the importance of continued dialogue. The SCTCS and New Carolina are exploring ways to develop a structured method of collecting community feedback on a more regular basis.