National Skills Summit

National Skills Summit
Innovative Initiatives: Consortiums

Computing Technology Industry Association (Comptia) Jobs+ Partnership Career Management Programs

The Challenge:

To recruit, train, certify, and help place more than 200,000 new information technology employees by the year 2004.

The Solution:

Develop a standard system of classroom instruction, certification, job shadowing, mentoring, and apprenticeship opportunities at educational institutions nationwide to provide IT workers with a common set of skills that employers can trust.

The Partners:

Computing Technology Industry Association (CompTIA) is a not-for-profit trade association of more than 10,000 companies and professional IT members in the rapidly-converging computing and communications market.

Seventy-five different high schools, two-year colleges, Workforce Investment Boards, non-profit organizations, and government organizations nationwide have partnered with CompTIA to train individuals for careers in the IT industry. New partners are being added each month.

The Story:

CompTIA has members in more than 50 countries and provides a unified voice for the industry in the areas of e-commerce standards, vendor-neutral certification, service metrics, public policy, and workforce development. More than 250,000 individuals worldwide have earned CompTIA certifications in PC service, networking, document imaging, and Internet. For employees, the benefits of certification include proof of professional achievement and competence, better job opportunities, and greater potential for promotions. For employers, certification provides lower training costs, higher customer satisfaction, higher profits, and industry self-regulation. In the Spring of 2000, CompTIA launched an initiative to ensure that enough workers and employers could access these benefits: JOBS+.

JOBS+ is a partnership between CompTIA and educational institutions nationwide. Through the CompTIA industry standards and the JOBS+ model, CompTIA helps high schools, junior colleges, non-profits, and government organizations run training programs that cover a wide range of entry-level skills needed in the IT industry. JOBS+ works to address the IT skills shortage on a variety of different levels. It raises awareness of IT careers among potential employees, works with educational partners to train and certify IT workers, and links trained IT workers to employment opportunities through an Internet-based job bank.

CompTIA created the IT Industry Consortium for Technical Education to streamline technical training and support for multiple technology systems. Training executives from major manufacturers (including Apple, Compaq, Hewlett Packard, IBM, and Microsoft) reviewed CompTIA's certification programs and developed IT skill standards for educational institutions. This initiative will help reduce redundancy in training, provide a basis for common areas of technical support and provide certification for all fundamentals of technical skills. CompTIA also created the Technical Career Path Initiative to develop a clearly defined career path for IT technical personnel.

A Model of Innovation:

With its combined offerings of training and industry-wide certification, CompTIA exemplifies what an industry can accomplish. By partnering with a variety of different educational institutions, CompTIA opens the door to IT careers to non-traditional workers who might otherwise be left behind in the new economy. Because their certification is provided by the industry itself, these workers are virtually guaranteed jobs.

Contacts:

Gary Hannah, Program Development Manager
JOBS+, CompTIA
450 East 22nd Street, Suite 230
Lombard, Illinois 60148
630-268-1818 (p)
630-268-1384 (f)
info@comptia.org
www.comptia.org
www.jobsplus.org

Community Colleges: Meeting the Training Needs of Industry

Community colleges increasingly work hand-in-hand with local business leaders to develop curricula that meet training needs for in-demand skills. Many community colleges consult industry advisory boards and have learned to be flexible in curriculum development to meet changing needs. For instance, at Bellevue Community College in Washington, administrators purposefully do not specify the type of software for computer classes so new systems may be introduced quickly. Iowa Western Community College in Council Bluffs can make curriculum changes in only 30 to 40 days, offering students practical courses that can lead to immediate job offers.