Microsoft, Department of Labor Team Up to Train Technology Workers

On Tuesday, Microsoft Corp. announced it is donating cash, software and a curriculum to help provide training in technology skills to adults.

In a two-year alliance with the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL), One-Stop Career Centers around the country will receive a total of $3.5 million in cash and software, in addition to a donated Digital Literacy training curriculum, to further advance technology skills and training programs. Initially, grants will be made to One-Stop Career Centers in 9 cities: Boston and Framingham, Mass.; Pittsburgh and Lancaster, Pa.; Rockledge, Fla.; Sunnyvale, Calif.; Seattle; Chicago; and Beckley, W.Va.

Digital Literacy is a five-course curriculum that provides a foundation of basic computer skills to learners with little or no previous computing experience. The curriculum culminates in a Digital Literacy certificate test, which assesses knowledge across all five courses.

The Department of Labor's One-Stop Career Centers (http://www.careeronestop.org/) are nationwide resources that help businesses, job seekers, students and work-force professionals find employment and career resources, and obtain training and work-force credentials.

"This partnership will provide value-added technology training to workers seeking to upgrade their skills. Microsoft and other technology leaders understand that we need to close the skills gap to keep America competitive in the innovation economy," said Steven Law, deputy secretary of the DOL.

The grants will give One-Stop Centers the chance to build on existing models of technology skills training and to test new directions. In addition to increasing the centers' capacity to provide training in IT skills to adults with barriers to work and increase the pool of available workers with a command of IT skills, this new program has several other goals.

By integrating IT training into the ongoing programming of the public work-force system, Microsoft says it hopes to contribute to a better understanding of what types of IT skills curriculum and delivery are most effective for individuals whose barriers to work are due, at least in part, to deficiencies in IT skills.

Passman noted that in addition to an aging population and other demographic shifts, the nature of the country's work force is rapidly shifting. As enterprise moves from a manufacturing to an information-based economy, the skills that workers require increasingly revolve around knowledge-creation and information-sharing, insight and analysis, and collaboration and advanced communications skills. She pointed out some sobering statistics, citing recent research:

• Only 13 percent of American adults surveyed are "proficient" in the knowledge and skills needed to search, comprehend and use information, a 13 percent drop since 1992.*
  
  
• Just 13 percent of American adults surveyed are proficient in the knowledge and skills needed to identify and perform computational tasks, a number that hasn't improved in 15 years.*

Microsoft is inviting other industry leaders to join with the company in an alliance that will work with other leaders in the private and public sectors to create a national work-force development policy framework, goals and agenda for the United States. The company also hopes to work with the public sector to more effectively align successful private sector models of technology skills training and certification with public sector work-force development programs. Passman said she hopes that by 2010 every individual in the U.S. work-force who wants a basic level of technology and computing skills will have access to the training they need to succeed in the knowledge economy.

*National Center for Education Statistics, U.S. Department of Education. (2005). "National Assessment of Adult Literacy: A First Look at the Literacy of America's Adults in the 21st Century."