The Importance of Certification in the Academic World

For some time now, a debate has been raging on college campuses regarding the place that certification should hold on the academic world. On one side is the academic world, whose desire is to educate the entire student and create a well rounded individual with a variety of skills in all kinds of IT products, not only one vendor's products but a wide range of applications. One the other side are the corporations, who are looking for their next employees and feel that they can obtain the knowledge they need much more quickly, and less expensively through the certification process.

For the moment, most traditional four year universities do not offer courses which align with specific vendor certifications. Those types of certification courses are for the time being left o the technical schools and a number of associate degree programs.

Of course many corporations and academic institutions are looking for some sort of middle ground where the needs of universities and the needs of businesses can meet. For instance, many companies found themselves short handed when it came to experts in information storage and related areas. Many companies were forced to hire workers without the needed training and skills, and to rely instead on an on the job training program to fill in the gaps. In order to address this growing problem, EMC developed a new training program in conjunction with several international universities. This new storage program was used to educate college students on important storage concepts they would need on the job. In addition to this program, EMC also launched a new storage certification which aligned with the course that had been developed.

Even though EMC originally developed the curriculum, however, the company does not teach the course. Instead, the course is taught by university professors, with the content provided by EMC. This approach could be a harbinger of things to come, with corporations and colleges working together to produce students who can hit the ground running and provide real value in their various job functions. Students and job candidates get the value of a certification to add to their resume, while the college gets to produce the well rounded knowledgeable student that has long been the standard of academia.

This type of curriculum and certification process is expected to produce the type of employees that many companies are eager to hire, and the partnership with businesses is one way that colleges can keep their courses relevant to an ever changing IT work environment.

When EMC brought its program to the United States , the pilot school it chose was Penn State . In addition, the program was launched internationally, with 26 colleges and universities in India already signed up, along with two in Ireland and one in Mexico .

Pre-College Education

Even as the debate over certification continues to rage at the college level, the desire for certification is trickling down to even younger ages. In fact many public and private high schools have been looking at the possibility of providing training and certification programs to give their students an edge in an increasingly competitive IT job market.

Some of the most popular programs for high schools are the CompTIA certifications. Certifications such as the A+and Network+ credentials are a popular choice because they are vendor neutral, providing students with a broad range of knowledge that can be applied to a variety of hardware and software platforms.

Even as high schools and colleges make inroads in the world of certification and training, however, dedicated training vendors like CBT Planet continue to provide valuable services to their students. CBT Planet is dedicated to providing self paced computer based training, instructor led computer training classes and courseware designed to help students get up to speed fast in their favorite area of expertise. CBT Planet offers a full compliment of courses for such vendors as Microsoft MCSE, Cisco CCNA, CompTIA, Red Hat, Oracle, IBM, Sun and others. Contact CBT Planet today to discuss your training and certification needs.