S2C-IN drives middle-skills resolution.

Indiana State Senators Recognize Importance of Middle-Skills Jobs

Drawing on the success of the Skills2Compete-Indiana Campaign launch in October 2010, campaign partners led by the Indiana Institute for Working Families helped successfully advance Senate Resolution 85 to call on Indiana's State Workforce Investment Board, Division of Adult Education, and Office of Career and Technical Education to assess industry-recognized standards for middle-skill industry clusters to ensure that education and training programs in the state meet these standards.

The resolution instructs these bodies to include the following tasks in their state plans:

• Create a comprehensive assessment of industry recognized, objectively-assessed credentials of middle-skill occupations in industries that are essential to the state’s economy and the education and training programs in the state that train workers to earn these credentials;
• Identify gaps wherein training programs do not exist for specified credentials or falls short of adequately preparing workers for specified credentials;
• Develop recommendations to close these identified gaps;
• Monitor completion of this assessment and development of these recommendations; and
• Review and, if deemed appropriate,  revise the recommendations.

With sponsors, the Resolution was unanimously passed by the Senate Education and Career Development Committee on April 25, 2011, and passage by the full Senate is expected in the coming weeks.  Click here to learn more.