文档介绍：Education and Training for the
Information Technology Workforce
Report to Congress
From the Secretary merce
. Department merce
April 2003
DEPARTMENT MERCE
FOREWORD
Rapid advances in information technology have contributed greatly to our country’s economic
growth, low inflation, high-wage job creation, low unemployment, solid increases in productivity,
and improvements in our quality of life. These technologies are spurring new product and service
development; fostering new business formation; revitalizing existing products, services, and
industries; and enhancing our ability to manage information, innovate, and improve productivity.
Widespread deployment of digital technologies throughout the Nation and our ongoing trans-
formation to a knowledge-based economy have created strong demand for workers who can
create, apply, and use information technologies (IT). The demand for these workers goes
beyond the IT industry, cutting across manufacturing and services, transportation, health care,
education, and government. The IT professions are among the fastest growing and highest
paying jobs in our economy, and despite the downturn in IT-related industries, there is still
demand for highly skilled technical workers.
Jobs in the IT field are varied, complex, and specialized, as are the knowledge, skills, and experi-
ence required to perform them. There is no single path to prepare a worker for a professional IT
job. There is no “one size fits all” IT education and training solution, nor is there a simple answer
to the question “what works?” Instead, there is a vast array of education and training opportuni-
ties, with different types of programs and curricula serving different purposes, such as programs
that:
I provide deep fundamental knowledge of IT;
I train in a particular IT discipline, such as programming, database management, or
networking;
I prepare workers for a specialized field, such as IT security, bioinf