Southeast Tech Takes Part in UpSkill Program
College Offering Low-Cost Courses to Workers Displaced by COVID-19
from keloland.com
SIOUX FALLS, S.D. (KELO) – The pandemic took a toll on many businesses, leaving a lot of people without a job. Earlier this week Gov. Kristi Noem announced a new program that will help dislocated workers.
Southeast Tech is one of the state’s four technical colleges that will be offering the UpSkill program.
Those participating will be able to earn certificate programs in high-demand fields.
“The certificates that will be offered are actually going to be all online,” president Southeast Tech, Bob Griggs said. “We’re hoping to make it easy and accessible for them by putting these certificates online, so the courses will be accessible across the state of South Dakota.”
People can get certificates in areas such as business, health care, information technology, manufacturing and more.
“The certificates that are offered as part of this training or retraining opportunity will vary at each of the technical colleges, at Southeast Tech we are going to focus primarily on healthcare certificates and certificates in the information technology areas as well,” Griggs said.
“This gives them an opportunity to learn a skill that gets them into a higher paying job, so they can be more successful and pursue that dream that they’ve always had,” Gov. Kristi Noem said.
Griggs says Southeast Tech is already seeing a high interest.
“These programs that we are bringing forward are actually all fairly high demand certificate offerings that will hopefully lead to a solid employment and new career opportunity,” Griggs said.
The Board of Technical Education and the Department of Labor are partnering to support UpSkill. Participants can earn certificates at little to no cost.