🔒Instructor shortage slows CT’s ability to launch new manufacturing training programs

Over the past year, the American Association of Retired Persons (AARP) held events at Wallingford Public Schools, Tunxis Community College and Goodwin University.

But these weren’t events to advise retirees about continuing education programs available to seniors looking to remain active after capping off their professional careers.

They were recruiting sessions in search of people who can help fill a void in qualified instructors for manufacturing education programs.

While much talk in recent years has been about a workforce pipeline shortage, it turns out the state also lacks enough instructors to teach a growing number of manufacturing training programs at technical high schools, community colleges and other educational institutions.

That’s more concern for a state that is projected to lose 20% of its manufacturing workforce to retirement over the next four years.

“The state of Connecticut needs to be in a unified march toward increasing manufacturing workers in this state, or we are on a course for economic failure,” said Nora Duncan, AARP’s Connecticut state director who is working with state and private education institutions on finding manufacturing instructors in her association’s member pool. “The manufacturing industry, especially the big guys, could be digging into their retirees.”

Connecticut state lawmakers have been mulling a bill aimed at addressing the instructor shortage. It would give tax credits to manufacturing companies that provide employees who can serve as instructors for education programs.

But that likely won’t be a cure-all as the need for new workers and training programs increases in the coming years, experts said.

Some industry officials say other changes need to be made, including relaxing certain teacher-certification requirements to allow more people to teach at technical and traditional high schools.

Some lawmakers also want to start a pilot expanding advanced manufacturing certificate programs at public high schools, which would require even more educators.

“Unfortunately, we are not even coming close to having enough teachers to fill the current classes we are running,” Tracy Ariel, director of manufacturing education at Manchester and Middlesex community colleges, said in written testimony related to the proposed employer tax-credit legislation. “Our hope is to not just sustain but get our programs to capacity in an attempt to try to meet those upcoming employment projections.”

Manchester and Middlesex collectively have about a dozen part-time and full-time manufacturing instructors, but public and private schools at the college and secondary school level are currently working at capacity to meet industry needs, Ariel said in an interview.

She said an instructor tax credit could help demonstrate to private companies that industry and education institutions can work closely together on workforce issues.

“I think that it’s necessary to say this is a partnership, and this is how we can give on both sides,” Ariel said. “It’s an incredible amount of need. … We are working really hard to try to get to that need.”

Enfield’s Asnuntuck Community College, which has a 50,000-square-foot facility dedicated to manufacturing education, currently has about 25 manufacturing instructors, said James Lombella Ed.D., Regional President, North-West Region Connecticut Community Colleges at the Connecticut State Colleges and Universities system.

Based on student interest in manufacturing programs, he said they could double enrollment in these courses, and Tunxis is currently renovating 10,000 square feet of a recently purchased 44,000-square-foot building in Farmington into manufacturing education space.

“As we continue to grow over the next six months, 12 months … there is going to become a need for additional instructors,” Lombella said, noting that over the past year Tunxis has doubled the number of students in machine technology and robotics technician programs from about 30 to 60.

To find the necessary instructors, Lombella said, the schools must market the positions better, but budget cuts over the years have made it challenging to do so.

But AARP’s Duncan said companies should be doing more to make current or retiring employees aware of teaching opportunities.

“I think we have gone from them doing very little to doing a little more,” Duncan said. “But I think there is a vast opportunity for companies to do even more.”

However, Eric Brown, vice president of manufacturing policy for the Connecticut Business & Industry Association (CBIA) said manufacturers are currently stretched to their limits, as far as their workforces are concerned, and are ill-equipped to put more resources into finding prospective teachers for manufacturing education programs.

“I don’t think it’s reasonable to expect that manufacturers are going to be marketing to their employees alternate career paths,” Brown said. “I don’t think there is market incentive.”

Cutting red tape

When it comes to programs at the high school level, there is more red tape for prospective instructors than on the post-secondary level. But not as much as some may think, said Shannon Marimón, executive director of ReadyCT, a nonprofit aimed at advocating for educational policy reform.

Under current regulations, people with a high school diploma and three years of relevant work experience can qualify to be an interim teacher, Marimón said. That designation lasts for up to three years, during which time the teacher must complete three professional education training programs to become certified in Connecticut’s public schools.

Whether they’re real or perceived, the idea of an onerous certification process can scare off possible instructor candidates, said Craig Drezek, superintendent of Goodwin University’s Magnet Schools.

Also unhelpful is that the pay differential — teachers often make about half the money manufacturing workers earn — doesn’t help, Drezek said.

“There’s a void in the talent, so how do you get people who are qualified but not certified in the classroom?” Drezek asked. “That’s the question.”

Jamison Scott, executive director of the New Haven Manufacturers Association, agreed that it can be tough to find people willing to take a pay cut and jump through certain hoops in order to teach manufacturing at a technical or traditional high school. But the problem could be mitigated by re-thinking the certification process for teachers leading manufacturing courses, Scott said, adding he believes there is still untapped potential for new instructors.

“[Qualified instructors are] few and far in between, it’s definitely a serious issue because as we’re ramping up these programs there aren’t many people who can fill these positions,” Scott said. “But the interest is definitely there.”