Career and technical education can provide a ticket to the future in today’s technical job market. Locally, the Galesburg Area Vocational Center provides a variety of occupational training programs to high school students, which has seen a significant increase says Knox County Area Partnership President Ken Springer:
“One of the things that we have talked about in the past is enrollment in vocational programming at the high school levels being like a leading indicator of where our economy is going. If we have students signing up classes that means in the future, we are going to have more workers in those industries. Just last month, the Galesburg Area Vocational Center, which again is the regional education center that does vocational training for high schools all across Knox and Warren County; they reported that their fall enrollment for 2022 was actually up 68% over the prior year, which is phenomenal to see that happening. That means there will be a lot more workers in our key industries in the next couple of years.”
The Galesburg Area Vocational Center offers programs focused on manufacturing, food service, childhood development, health services, construction, automotive, technology, and public safety to high school students enrolled at Abingdon-Avon, Williamsfield, Galesburg, Knoxville, ROWVA, Monmouth-Roseville, United, and West Central.
