McGreevey & Community Colleges Partner
to Create Jobs
Continuing his aggressive efforts to create jobs and strengthen New Jersey's economy, Governor James E. McGreevey signed the New Jersey Community Colleges Compact, an executive order that creates a new statewide partnership between the State of New Jersey and its nineteen community colleges. The Compact empowers New Jersey's community colleges as centers for not only educational endeavors, but also for workforce development and business attraction programs.
"In order to secure New Jersey's economic future, we have set out aggressive job goals for the next five years, like creating 200,000 new jobs, training 150,000 workers, and relocating or expanding 500 businesses into our state. But we cannot accomplish those goals alone," said McGreevey. "This Compact ensures that our community colleges will be an invaluable partner as we build New Jersey's future, creating jobs for our families and our children for years to come. By training 21st century workers, our community colleges will provide our workforce with the skills to be competitive and will enable us to attract new businesses to our state by offering the skilled labor they require in this competitive marketplace."
The Compact calls for the colleges to work in cooperation with the NJ Department of Labor on customized training, workforce literacy and self-employment assistance. The Colleges will also work with the NJ Commerce and Economic Growth Commission on business attraction and development programs, urban enterprise zones and small business development centers. Additionally the Compact enables the colleges to work with the Department of Education on career academies throughout the state and the 12th grade option, enabling seniors to begin preparing for high-paying jobs before they even leave high school.
"Governor McGreevey's signing of the Community College Compact is a historic moment for our state's community college system," said New Jersey Council of Community Colleges President Lawrence A. Nespoli. "Since the inception of community colleges in the 1960's, never before has the community college sector had a formalized agreement in partnering to meet the state's workforce and economic development needs."#
