Colquitt County & MTC Celebrate
Work Ready Certification
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Georgia Work Ready Community Leader Fred McConnel of the Governor’s Office of Workforce Development helped representatives from Moultrie Technical College and Colquitt County celebrate the county's new designation as a certified Work Ready Community of Excellence on October 27. The event was held on the steps of the Colquitt County Courthouse as a ribbon cutting in partnership with the Moultrie-Colquitt County Chamber of Commerce.
Colquitt County joins more than 70 counties in the state to achieve the status. Such a designation communicates these counties have the skilled workforces needed to meet business demands and drive economic growth, as well as the educational foundation to build a pipeline of workers ready to create ongoing success.
“By earning Work Ready certificates and building a culture of lifelong learning, these communities gain a valuable competitive advantage,” said Governor Sonny Perdue. “These counties have developed the tools necessary to attract new industry and jobs, give their citizens confidence and boost opportunity.”
Certified counties have also demonstrated a commitment to improving public high school graduation rates through a measurable increase and have shown a specified percentage of the available and current workforce has obtained Work Ready certificates.
Colquitt countians earned over 900 Work Ready certificates in the public, private, unemployed, high school senior and college student sectors in addition to those seeking GED diplomas.
The county’s high school graduation rate has shown a 20 percent increase from 59.6 percent in 2007-2008 to 79.6 percent in 2009-2010 during the accelerated Georgia Work Ready grant period.
Each community created a team of economic development, government and technical education partners to meet the certification criteria. Counties are given three years to reach the goals necessary to earn the designation.
Once counties attain their Certified Work Ready Community goals, they are able to maintain their status by ensuring a small percent of their available workforce continue to earn Work Ready Certificates, engage local businesses to recognize and use Work Ready, and continue to increase their public high school graduation rate until they reach a threshold of 75 percent.
To continue their work, each county will receive a $10,000 grant. Their Work Ready Community teams will also receive a two-year membership to their local chamber of commerce and a budget for additional Work Ready outreach materials. Counties that are fully certified receive road signs and a seal denoting the year they achieved certification.
Georgia’s Work Ready initiative is based on a skills assessment and certification for job seekers and a job profiling system for businesses. By identifying both the needs of business and the available skills of Georgia’s workforce, the state can more effectively generate the right talent for the right jobs. The Certified Work Ready Community initiative builds on the assessments and job profiling system to create opportunities for greater economic development.
For more information on the Work Ready initiative, please visit the Web site at www.gaworkready.org or contact MTC Work Ready Director Cheryl Friedlander at (229) 217-4257.
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