This will provide additional opportunity for community colleges to fulfill their respective missions and role in their community. In addition to IT companies where IT is the product, IT Skills are also critically important to advanced manufacturing, another focus area of the state s economic development efforts. There will be more companies and more workers in our communities being more successful, paying more taxes, and enrolling in more activities at community colleges. Discussion IT Skills have been at the center of a great number of community college discussions for some time. IT Skills have been identified as a significant issue for workforce development.
Skills are a significant issue in discussions about virtual learning.
The development and implementation of M-TEC s, and continuation of EDJT training, has lead to a great deal of discussion about IT Skills. And, there is ongoing discussion about how to expand and improve IT Skills in ongoing programs. There is also a significant need to integrate IT Skills in academic classes such as math, communication and science. Much of the discussion about IT Skills has identified specific challenges to expansion and improvement. The primary challenge is the limited IT Skills of current instructional and support staff, and the difficulty of finding new staff with IT Skills.