Online Job Training a Central Component of $8 Billion Funding Initiative

President Obama proposed a new Community College to Career Fund Monday, which intends to provide some 2 million people with job-related training — a project that people in the e-Learning and training fields will certainly want to keep an eye on.

It isn’t the first time Obama has spoken about his desire to take a bite out of national unemployment figures by focusing on closing the skills gap. While the Labor Department’s budget is taking a hit, worker protection agencies are getting a bump in funding, along with essential training programs. A few other notes from the announcement:

• The $8 billion fund will be co-administered by the departments of Labor and Education, and will provide community colleges and states with money to create programs with local businesses to train workers in high-growth fields like health care, transportation, and advanced manufacturing.
• The fund will also pay the creation of a six-week online training course on entrepreneurship for up to half a million small business owners, and a six-week training program that will give up to 100,000 small business owners certifications in entrepreneurship.

On Friday at 1 p.m. ET, Carmel Martin of the Education Department will be participating in a Twitter Q-and-A session on the 2013 budget.

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