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thePeorian.com
HIGHER
EDUCATION:
How does the Peoria
region measure up?
by Paul Gordon
As
the Peoria met-
ropolitan area’s
civic leaders get
further into revamping economic
development operations, it is no
surprise that secondary and post-
secondary education are and will
get plenty of attention.
Regardless of what the Peoria
region has in terms of educa-
tion quality it can always be
improved, those civic leaders
believe, especially if the region
is going to realize an influx of
employers and jobs in the not-
too-distant future.
But how does the region — the
four-county region covered by
the new economic development
authority Focus Forward CI —
measure up now in terms of
education quality?
Frank Knott, founder and pres-
ident of Vital Economy Inc., the
Baltimore-based company that is
spearheading the revamping of
economic development efforts,
studied the area’s education of-
ferings as part of that task. While
in agreement with others that
improvement is always welcome,
Knott found no glaring problems
in the quality of Peoria’s post-
secondary education offerings.
“
What our research shows is
that the region has pretty viable
post-secondary education. Some
people have expressed concerns
that there is no public university
in the region because of the costs
of the private institutions in the
area. But Bradley University is
doing an excellent job. It is doing
a terrific job in merging health
care and business and engineer-
ing with manufacturing. Those
are really important areas in
central Illinois,” Knott said.
“
Also, the community col-
lege system in the region is very
strong, particularly in workforce
training programs. Those colleges
are very interesting in being
creative in leadership develop-
ment programs. All of that is very
important because I think the
most critical aspect of economic
development that needs to be
developed is the workforce. What
we need is more out-of-the-box
thinking in creating and retaining
the workforce of the future,” he
said.
“
We’re working very hard
on that right now, enlisting the
cooperation of the schools. We’re
coordinating education direc-
tion and workforce development
needs,” Knott added.
The Present
