A r c h i v e d  I n f o r m a t i o n

A Parallel Postsecondary Universe: The Certification System in Information Technology - October 2000

Playing by the Numbers

20. How many IT certifications have been issued? Initially, it was hard to come by the numbers because there is no central registry; and the data one can extract from various press releases, examination preparation books, and Web sites do not yield unduplicated headcounts. Most (though not all) vendors and industry associations, however, are pleased to provide the information when asked directly. Table 4 summarizes what one can obtain from them (only Microsoft provides other than rounded numbers); it excludes the kind of certifications offered to end-user office workers who demonstrate proficiency in software packages. The Microsoft Office User Specialist (MOUS) certification, in three levels (general, expert, and master), is the best illustration of what is excluded.

21. The 1.9 million certifications (not people, but certifications) we know about is probably two-thirds of the iceberg, particularly as some major U.S. players (Sun, IBM, Compaq) are not accounted for. This is a global industry, these are worldwide figures, and if Microsoft's data on MCSE's and Cisco's data on CCIE's are any indication, about half of the major certifications are awarded to individuals outside the United States. As for growth, consider: there were 35,000 MCSE's awarded by the fall of 1997 and 280,000 by June of 2000. For the more rarified MCSD (Microsoft Certified Solutions Developer), the numbers rose from 3,000 to over 27,000 in the same period. And during the same period, too, the number of discrete certifications available from all sponsors increased by 200 (a veritable doubling of options).

22. Is there any way of estimating an unduplicated headcount? Microsoft reported an unduplicated headcount of its own certifications at 719,129 in February 2000, or 81 percent of its total number as of that month. But that figure seems oddly high in light of surveys (Microsoft's included) that show 50 to 60 percent of the candidates walking into examination rooms already hold at least one IT certification (sometimes from another vendor). In a 1997 Gartner Group survey of 7,000 certification candidates cited by Martinez (1999), the proportion seeking their first certification had dropped to 31 percent (from 56 percent in 1994). The percentage might seem extreme, but the trend is credible.

Allow some license in light of these varying estimates: I will ballpark worldwide certifications at 2.5 million and unduplicated headcount at 65 percent of that, or more than a year's production of bachelor's and associate's degrees in the U.S.

23. More global and unobtrusive ways to reckon growth in potential certifications lie in examining the volume of offerings of courses that prepare individuals for certification--or, when available, indirect indications of actual enrollments. Even those very oblique methods underestimate activity in a field full of autodidacts and self-study materials (the Library of Congress holds 233 exam preparation books and study guides for the MCSE alone), and in certification specifications in which coursework may be recommended, but usually not required because the industry knows how much can be learned by experience and self-study. In Microsoft's 1997 salary survey of a sample of its certificate holders, 98 percent indicated self-study as a preparation method, with 91 percent using books. And in a 1998 study by the Gartner Group (cited by Martinez, 1999) 43 percent of 6,000 certification candidates indicated self-study as their primary preparation method. College course work was last on the Gartner list, but other classroom training (from the vendors themselves) was ranked much higher.

24. In an attempt to access course enrollments as a potential indicator of future certifications, I entered a query at the Cisco Web site for all course offerings by either Cisco or its training partners in the year 2000 that were part of the certification preparation sequences. The answer: "3,822. Please narrow your search!" If only five people show up to each class, these 3,822 offerings could prompt nearly 20,000 cases of course taking.

25. In a more finite illustration, consider the offerings for a five-day (40 hour) course in Advanced Cisco Router Configuration, one of the core courses leading into CCNA (Cisco Certified Network Associate) certification. During the two-week period Jan. 23-Feb. 3, 2000, this course was offered at 75 locations in 20 countries on four continents and in ten languages (English, Chinese, Japanese, German, French, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, and Turkish)--and in all cases by providers other than traditional institutions of postsecondary education. The introductory CCNA course, a 40-hour Web-based production, is delivered continuously in English from 12 servers in the U.S., UK, Germany, Austria, Russia, and Brazil, and by Cisco "training partners" Global Knowledge, Ascolta Training, Getronics UK, Mentor Technologies Group, Azlan Limited, Multireded Informatica, Sequoia Networks, and others. None of these partners was in the Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS) as of 1998. Because these training partners exist outside government reporting systems, we have no idea how many people actually attended these course offerings.

26. Oracle provides a rare window into enrollment volume. When one clicks on the registration page for an Oracle course offered directly by Oracle, and indicates preferred geographic region and time period, the response is a listing of sites, dates, and number of seats still open. For example, in the month beginning February 21, 2000, and for the five-day foundations course, Introduction to Oracle: SQL [Structured Query Language], 75 classes were offered in the continental United States. As of February 17, eight of those classes were sold out, and another 19 had five or fewer seats open. Assuming a mean class size of 20 and subtracting the listed open seats, 780 people were enrolled for that one course during that one month period. Annualized enrollment: 9,360. Would all these people pass the Oracle SQL test and proceed on toward certification? No. But the numbers give us an idea of demand for this knowledge.

Some of Cisco's training partners in countries outside the U.S. present the same type of window. Between May and August of 2000, the Softnet Learning Center in Buenos Aires, Argentina offered 30 courses on 11 Cisco topics with a capacity of 12-16 students per course. As of May 24, 172 seats had been filled and two courses (both given in May) were closed. Latin America is now the fastest growing Internet market, and requires a home-grown workforce to serve the infrastructure. Seats such as these will be claimed.

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