Wednesday, May 13, 1998

Schools must meet needs of new workplace

Nextel Communications Inc. is a major Abilene business success story. And that success may have identified a major shortcoming in Abilene's educational offerings.

Last year, Nextel -- one of the largest digital wireless communications providers in the country, purchased Pittencrieff Communications Inc.'s south Abilene facility. That local office is now the site of development for the nationwide corporation's Internet, intranet and extranet capabilities. And the business is exploding.

In fact, it's growing so fast that Nextel can't find enough qualified computer specialists for its Abilene site and is being forced to recruit them from all over the world. Local Nextel manager Dan Hendrickson says the company is spending $25,000 a week in travel and lodging for potential Abilene employees, trying to lure creative computer minds from California's Silicon Valley and other havens for computer workers.

Hendrickson says the worker shortage goes beyond Abilene to affect the computer industry as a whole. While American universities are turning out some 35,000 computer programmers a year, the industry actually needs 100,000.

The obvious question for universities in the United States is, Why can't they respond to this employment demand with qualified American-educated programmers? Closer to home, How come our three four-year universities aren't able to meet the needs of local employers?

When an industry shows such clear signs of growth, as has the computer industry in recent years, our educational institutions must provide the kind of training that will furnish jobs for its graduates. Here in Abilene and in the nation as a whole, educators must be planning to fill the needs of employers who are seeking highly paid, highly trained workers.

An educational system that's not doing so is making itself obsolete -- and quickly.