Re: [school-discuss] Re: [IIEP] Retraining initiative

[Tom Adelstein <tadelste@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Tue, 2005-05-10 at 13:34 -0700, Bill Kendrick wrote:
> On Tue, May 10, 2005 at 12:39:24PM +0300, Teemu Leinonen wrote:
> > I agree that the training should always explore different kind of
> > (free/open source) technologies. I am afraid, that if the training is
> > only about LAMP or Zope or any other specific (free/open or proprietary)
> > technology the programmers will be again unemployed when the next (big)
> > technology comes.
> 
> One way in which Open Source Software is different from the current and
> previous "big" technologies is that it's open.  Due to its openness, and
> its separation from "Company XYZ" who may go bankrupt or change
> direction in 5 years, Open Source would seem to have a much longer
> 'shelf-life' than some proprietary tools.
> 
> -bill!

Bill - your post is fine but does it address Teemu's concern?

I'm hearing numbers like 2.5 million tech jobs lost permanently. More
jobs lost in IT than all jobs created since 2000. A large percentage of
those jobs have 3-5 years of moss. They are not counted in the
"official" unemployment statistics. We can also talk about manufacturing
jobs lost and so on.

We have a big pool of IT talent unemployed and we see headlines that
students do not want to go into tech careers in college. So, we need
"retraining" or "skill enhancement" or something.

I'm just throwing an idea around. What's wrong with curriculum that will
focus on the hot IT topics to help people find jobs now and then
curriculum growing as the landscape changes?

I don't see open source technology solving this problem but I'm willing
to listen. IMHO, this shift in employment trends transcends the open vs
proprietary argument.