Grant offers dual enrollment program to rural schools

By Jim Cook

Published: July 22, 2008

A new grant is welding high school and community college together to provide benefits for students and local industry.

The Governor’s Office of Workforce Development has awarded a $24,300 grant to Wallace Community College to fund dual enrollment scholarships for high school students to take welding or industrial maintenance classes.

The grant will fund tuition, books, fees and supplies for up to 12 juniors and seniors from Abbeville, Barbour County, Dale County, Eufaula and Headland high schools each.

Mike Babb, dean of Wallace’s career technical instruction, said the scholarship was intended to allow students from schools with limited or no vocational career programs to receive training in an increasingly needed, respected and complicated skill.

“You can’t call them electricians because they weld, but you can’t call them welders because they can do HVAC,” he said.

According to Sally Buchanan, a Wallace spokesperson, welding and industrial maintenance fields are expected to grow 21.1 percent annually through the year 2014.  Locally, area businesses, such as Michelin and Covenant Steel, are experiencing labor shortages.

“It’s a good, honest living and we need more people in that area,” said Barry Sadler, Eufaula City Schools superintendent.

Under the dual enrollment program, students get both high school and college credit for courses taken, so students entering the program in their junior year could graduate from high school with a leg up in their career training.

“They could finish the program within a year,” Babb said.

Jim Beasley, director of support services for the Eufaula City Schools, said the program allows his school system to offer students an opportunity they otherwise wouldn’t get because having an in-house welding and industrial maintenance program was unfeasible.

“It gives our students another opportunity to gain some skills that will make them very employable,” he said.