Microsoft announces a new partnership with the Georgia Department of Education to roll out the Microsoft IT Academy (ITA) Program statewide in an effort to address the industry skills gap. The program will provide more than 460,000 students in 463 high schools with the experience they need in order to graduate with industry credentials for Microsoft programs.
While all kids today can text, IM and chat with their friends on a phone, the ones who can apply deeper technical skills that employers are seeking -- office productivity, collaboration, enterprise applications development – are the ones who will get an edge for today’s jobs and tomorrow’s workforce.
Georgia was the first state in the nation to have a statewide higher education agreement for IT Academy, starting in 2008 and covering all of the Georgia 2-year technical colleges in the system. Ogeechee Technical College is a top-ranked IT certification school in Georgia. Students are getting good jobs and good salary offerings, and over the past several years, graduates have achieved 100% job placement.
Currently, there are almost 10,000 jobs available today in the state of Georgia requiring Microsoft software skills.
Read more at Microsoft in Education Blog.
