Mount Wachusett Receives $6.45M Training Grant

Mount Wachusett Community College will receive $6.45 million from a federal grant to provide accelerated training and credentials to students pursuing careers in advanced manufacturing.

The grant, announced Wednesday, will go toward implementing an entry level program with three partner community colleges around the country that includes curriculum alignment and a common assessment process.

“Regional statistics show a need for skilled employees in manufacturing, an industry that does form the backbone of our local economy,” said Jacqueline Belrose, the vice president of lifelong learning and workforce development at the Gardner-based school, in a statement. “This grant will enhance our ability to provide hands-on training, experience and credentials to hundreds of unemployed and incumbent workers.”

The funds are aimed at bolstering programs in mechatronics, a multidisciplinary engineering field. Mount Wachussett specialized in quality control and metrology, the science of measurement.

The grant will build upon manufacturing and training initiatives implemented by funding the school received in 2011. This money is part of a $2 billion, multi-year federal initiative to expand training programs for unemployed workers in sectors where many jobs went overseas.

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