Virginiabetts

Back in 1994 a unique (at the time) co-operative project called Project Future was begun. It was a 3 year partnership between the Jefferson County Public School System and Futura Plastics and Engineering, Inc., of Louisville, Kentucky. The project targeted online plastics training specifically in teaching the initial skills of plastic injection molding production people. The skills classes were designed to improve the general education of people with instruction in mathematics, reading, writing, English (as a second language), workplace skills, and basic computer skills. At the end of the project, a software program for basic skills training in the plastics industry and a basic skills curriculum guide were developed and 348 plastics industry people had been trained. Because some plastics industry people involved in the project switched jobs during the plastics training project, there was a slight shortfall in the total number of people trained as measured against projections. For people who completed the project from beginning to end, the results were overwhelmingly positive. people showed improved skill levels, increased job knowledge and improved industry specific language skills. The people also showed that they were able to transfer their newly gained knowledge and skills to their actual work environment. Having the classes on-site enabled the company to recruit non-English speaking employees that otherwise would not have been able to work at the company.