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[Summary]A Parallel Postsecondary Universe: The Certification System in Information Technology - October 2000
71. Pre-collegiate and threshold certifications are a growing phenomenon. Consider, for example, the NetPrep program: sponsored by 3Com, with a curriculum developed by WestNet Learning, and blessed with certifications from the National Association of Communication Systems Engineers (NACSE). NetPrep offers four packages of courses, at different levels, to both high schools and colleges, with accompanying examinations for junior-type certifications. The threshold high school courses on networking fundamentals and LANS will get you a NACSE Student Technical Certificate of Achievement. Add courses in Wide-Area-Networks (WANS) and Networking Architecture, pass the exams, and you are dubbed a Student Network Technician. The college-level packages are the same as those offered to NACSE member-candidates for two levels of Network Specialist certification, Associate and Senior. But in all these cases, school and college, students must join the organization. This approach builds a pipeline to the guild.
72. The Cisco Networking Academy, claiming nearly 3200 sites in 59 countries, is a four-semester program in which students can apply credits toward the Cisco Certified Network Associate credential. Contrary to a popular belief, the academies are not confined to schools. Of 329 Academy locations in California, for example, seven are at 4-year colleges, 56 are at community colleges, and eight are at secular institutions. It is difficult to determine total enrollment and retention in the Cisco Academy programs, but some of the sites profiled on Cisco's website provide very indirect evidence: 50 students at Madison Area Technical College in Wisconsin, 50 at Oakland (Calif.) Technical High School. Even though this program is vendor-specific, there is no question that students acquire generic industry knowledge of such key elements of networks as protocols, configurations, filters, and segmentation.
73. We noted that the Microsoft AATP program included 129 high schools as of August 2000 (see table 7). Some of these high school programs were not born yesterday. Wyoming started in 1995, and by 1998 had 250 students in eleven regular regional high schools enrolled in the likes of generic Networking Essentials, Visual Basic programming, and vendor-specific Windows NT Server software courses. A tech-prep articulation program has been worked out with two of the state's community colleges, and a dual-enrollment agreement can net the student up to 21 college credits (including accounting and business mathematics in addition to the IT certification preparation courses). Math through pre-calculus is required. There are no junior certifications here. Instead, the student is given momentum on the path to certification. What is more notable about the AATP high school program, though, is the required teacher training and certification. When secondary school teachers must pass IT subject examinations and are challenged to be certified as IT trainers, guild knowledge becomes resident at a very local level.
74. The Wings-21 program in Nebraska illustrates a different type of sponsorship and approach. It was developed by a nonprofit consortium of business, government agencies, and schools to introduce students to IT careers starting with a required Pathway-21 Course in grade nine. Following this experience, 14 participating high schools teach Cisco technology, and area businesses provide internships, for example, working with teachers on U.S.West projects in application programming and database development. There is no specific pre-certification here, and the vendor role is secondary to opening up paths to programming, multimedia, and business applications. The metaphor of the "pipeline" is derived from fluid mechanics, and envisions a closed space and an inevitable direction. The IT world doesn't always work in such inexorable ways, so the options inherent in the "path" approach of Wings-21 are attractive.