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Section 5: Education
The fifth section of the questionnaire asked respondents their opinions about education in terms of its ability to serve the needs of the business community. This section is considerably shorter than in previous years. Responses to the general education questions were extremely consistent over the first two years. Because of this consistency we decided that we could track perceptions of general education adequately by including the specific questions on a biannual basis.
The only question in this section of the 2010 survey asks about the strength of educational programs that train people to work in specific industries, most of them associated with the state's economic development initiatives. Results for this question appear in Figure 21.
Ratings for seven of the 10 educational program areas are statistically equivalent to the ratings from 2009, indicating that perceptions of these programs remain stable. Once again, "film" received the lowest rating.
It is important to consider that large minorities of respondents indicate they are unsure about how to rate specific programs. A low of 12.3 percent indicate they are unsure about the rating for "information technology," while half (49.9 percent) say they are unsure about how to rate the strength of educational programs in "film." In short, the results presented reflect the averages of those who expressed an opinion, not the ratings of the entire sample.
Trends for these industries can be seen in Figure 22a and Figure 22b.
There are the perceptions that educational programs for "advanced manufacturing," "information technology," and "agriculture" are significantly weaker than in 2007. Educational programs for "motor sports" are significantly stronger than in 2007.
