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Published on: 5/13/2002
Last Visited: 5/13/2002
"We built a curriculum based on the needs of the employers," said Robert Delaney, director of CCRI's Center for Business and Industrial Training, which set up the program."There is a huge demand for welders, and what CCRI is offering are pre-screened, high-quality people."
CCRI HAS LONG had relationships with employers at Quonset Point-Davisville -- especially with Electric Boat, with which it has a partnership to offer on-site classes for 59 workers pursuing associate's degrees.
But last December, after a survey by the college and the state Economic Development Corporation found an overwhelming need for job training among the industrial park's 127 tenants, CCRI decided to step up its efforts.
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Delaney said he expects the plans to be ready by the committee's meeting next week.
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The starting pay for welders at Quonset is about $12 to $14 an hour, Delaney said, much better than what most clients of the one-stop job centers earn.The partnership and the Providence/Cranston Workforce Development Board -- another one-stop job-center partner -- agreed to provide federal-funded vouchers to cover the $1,900 tuition, stipulating only that students wouldn't be trained specifically for Electric Boat, but for any company that needed welders.
To recruit the first class, the two agencies and the EDC began what was to be a six-week advertising campaign.They stopped after four days, Delaney said, already flooded with 160 applications.
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Many people try to learn welding, but few stick with it for long -- company-sponsored programs routinely lose as many as half their recruits, Delaney said.To try to avoid that kind of attrition, CCRI developed standards for the one-stop job centers to use in evaluating candidates.They gave them an online skills assessment, in which they had to score at least 50 percent.
Applicants also had to have ninth-grade math and literacy skills; for those who didn't, the Human Resources Investment Council allowed CCRI to use a special grant to offer an accelerated literacy course to help them catch up.