The Northern Kentucky Education Council, a multi-organization educational partnership, hosted their Fall Educational Convening at Thomas More University Wednesday morning. The event invited educators and professionals from around the region to listen to talks and discuss various issues relating to education and workforce development in Northern Kentucky.
“We’re a region of opportunity,” said the council’s Executive Director, Randy Poe. “It’s not about surviving in this region. It’s about flourishing.”
The speakers, who came from various partner organizations around the Northern Kentucky and Greater Cincinnati region, focused on a handful of key topics, namely the region’s changing demographic makeup, the importance of post secondary credentialing to a thriving workforce and the need for well-developed early childhood education programs.
“A positive thing that we’re seeing is increased economic development,” said Correy Eimer, the associate director of workforce development for the NKY Area Development District.
On the surface, this appears to be a good thing, especially as it relates to job creation, but there’s a problem, Eimer said.
“We have roughly two open jobs for every available person in our region,” Eimer said.
Eimer described an impending “demographic drought” in Northern Kentucky. Citing a recent housing study from the area development district itself as well as figures from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Pew Research Center and others, Eimer showed how an aging population, higher and higher numbers of retirements among baby boomers and low birth rates have all contributed to considerable gaps in labor and it’s not going to get any better, he said.
“We’re not going to have an influx of people,” Eimer said. “Our birth rate has been declining. We have a shrinking working age population… We have an aging population. So how do we back fill those jobs that our baby boomers are leaving? In the year 2015, 32% of our businesses reported a talent shortage, just 32%. In 2020, 70% of our employers reported a talent shortage. So an increase from 32% to 70% in just five years. That’s no doubt the result of demographic drop that we’re seeing.”
For the first time in U.S. history, senior citizens will outnumber children in 2034, Eimer said.
Other numbers he cited didn’t paint an optimistic picture either: Post-secondary education enrollment numbers are declining, meaning the number of workers with specialized training will likely decline. Immigration can offset some of the demographic dips, but, Eimer argued, public policy at the national level hasn’t been welcoming to immigrant workers.
As such, states need to do more “to embrace our immigrants because we’re frankly going to need them to participate in our workforce,” Eimer said.
To mitigate these problems, Eimer said that colleges and universities need to think about ways to make higher education more accessible and flexible. That means more concentration on short-term credentials, apprenticeship programs and other competency programs that are willing to deviate from conventional 4-year degree programs. He added that employers must also be willing to embrace older workers who decide to reenter the workforce after retirement.
Dr. Fernando Figueroa, vice chair of the council and president of Gateway Community and Technical College took up the issue of post-secondary education, reiterating the need for more post-secondary education for the region’s future workforce.
He cited a goal from the Kentucky Council on Postsecondary Education, which aims to see 60% of the adult population with degrees or other post secondary credentials by 2030.
“That’s not going to cut it,” Figueroa said.
Most jobs these days require some kind of advanced credential and training, he said, and if the region fails to make it easier for people to get that training, it won’t be able to furnish a workforce to build the economy.
He pointed to several challenges that adults encounter when trying to pursue higher education, whether at a research university, professional training program or community college like Gateway: childcare, housing and transportation.
As a result, the region needs to be flexible in providing post-secondary training. He pointed to dual credit programs, where a high school student can earn college credit while still in high school, as an example of an alternative.
“When people think of post-secondary, they think four-year, they think residential, they think… this world over here,” Figueroa said. “What we need to get to is the multiple bridges that we have, and if we build the Brent Spence, we can build that bridge, right?”
Several speakers then spoke about the need for well-developed infrastructure around early childhood education, including ways to make daycare affordable and the importance of pre-k education for children’s brain development.
Sandra Woodall, CEO of EC Learn, an early childhood nonprofit in Florence, for instance, discussed the importance of Kentucky’s Employer Childcare Assistance Partnership program, which offers state subsidies to employers willing to pitch in for their employees’ childcare expenses.
“We’re inviting employers to have official agreements to fund or refer or to designate childcare slots in a partnership for center-based childcare programs or in the home,” said Woodall.
The final segment of the meeting was led by Dr. Kathy Burkhardt of NaviGo, a consulting firm that specializes in college and career prep services.
She invited attendees to fill out cards on their tables, which listed common barriers to education and employment. Each attendee was asked to rank each problem from most pressing to least pressing. Burkhardt then asked each attendee to discuss with the people at their tables the sorts of actions they could take to overcome those challenges, whether it was in the form of individual actions, community partnerships or changes to public policy.
Poe said that the cards would be collected so that the education council could integrate the feedback into their goal-setting for the future.
“If we don’t put all this together where it comes to the schoolhouse doors, no matter what we say or whatever [civic leaders] do, it doesn’t matter because it’s not going to get done,” Poe concluded at the end of the event. “So that’s where it’s important for you to leave here and advocate for those things. People need to hear you.”
View all of the data and other information presented at the convening by visiting the Northern Kentucky Educational Council’s resource page and clicking on the relevant tab.