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Today, there is a huge demand for health career jobs. In keeping with this demand, Cerro Coso Community College, Porterville College and Bakersfield College students will be trained by the KCCD or Kern Community College District. KCCD will be given $ 5 million.

The entire grant is to the tune of $20 million. This was announced by Sandra Serrano, Chancellor of KCCD recently. Apart from KCCD, a consortium of community colleges in California won this grant. This is the only proposal for grant in California to be funded and it was submitted by West Hills Community College that led the Central California Community College Consortium.

The total grant of twenty million is a part of the five hundred million grant funds announced by our President for community colleges for a period of three years. This money will be used by these colleges to foster partnership between employers and colleges. This in turn will help develop programs that will ensure high paying, consistently available jobs for graduates.

According to Serrano, KCCD has put in a lot of effort recently to enhance college completion and student success in their area and these grants will be a huge help. Using these funds, they will now be able to equip students with the necessary competencies and skills they require in order to be successful. Using the funds, they will also enable students to respond to high demand local workforce in a short period of time.

Especially to help students establish their career in health care field, KCCD colleges will augment their basic skills using these funds. Porterville College Funds will support students who choose careers as psychiatric technicians. Bakersfield College on the other hand will train students in radiologic technology and nursing.

Funding support will be provided for students who wish to be certified in medical assistant programs and in nursing in Cerro Coso Community College. In order to enhance programs for students, a partnership will be established between local health care providers and KCCD.

One educational center and eleven colleges in the Consortium were allotted the funds out of which KCCD will receive one fourth portion. The grant proposal submitted revolved around a vision of acceleration strategies and systemic redesign in order to enhance degrees and certificates completion that will have a lot of value in the labor market.

According to Serrano, ways to ensure successful student completion were examined in this proposal. She said that the goal here was to make sure that students remained to complete their courses and finish their degree or certification in minimal time.

She says that in order to improve our local economies faster, students must complete their education sooner. With a service area of 25,000 square miles, Kern Community College District is the largest in America. This district encompasses San Bernardio, Mono, Inyo, Tulare and parts of Kern counties serving at least forty thousand students and 1400 employees at Cerro Coso Community College, Porterville College and Bakersfield College.