North Carolina Is First State in the Nation to Adopt Microsoft IT Academy in All High Schools

RALEIGH, N.C. — Nov. 15, 2010 — Officials from the state of North Carolina today announced an unprecedented partnership between the state’s Department of Public Instruction and Microsoft. Each of the state’s 628 high schools will adopt the Microsoft IT Academy program in the 2010–2011 school year. The program will give students the opportunity to learn in-demand software and technical skills as well as earn industry-recognized certification as a Microsoft Office Specialist (MOS) or a Microsoft Certified Professional (MCP).

While the Microsoft IT Academy program already has 9,000 members enrolled around the world in its subscription-based program and is growing at a rate of 30 percent per year, this is its largest deployment globally to date. It is also the first adoption of the Microsoft IT Academy program across all high schools in a single state.

To earn the MOS certification, students in the program will focus on learning the skills and technology relevant to all programs in the Microsoft Office suite — including Excel, PowerPoint, Access and OneNote — by completing hands-on labs, quizzes and projects modeled after real-life business scenarios. They will then have the opportunity to take the exam and earn the certification.



Lutz Ziob, general manager, Microsoft Learning.

“In today’s economy, providing the Microsoft IT Academy to high school students just makes sense,” says North Carolina State Superintendent June Atkinson, who noted that proficiency in Microsoft programs is essential in most professional settings today.

For schools interested in offering more advanced technical certification, students will also have the opportunity to focus on in-demand career areas in IT such as programming, network administration and database development. Students will then be eligible to take the MCP exam and earn the corresponding certification.

Architects of the program say that by giving North Carolina students industry-ready skills and certification, the Microsoft IT Academy will prepare students for a variety of settings after high school, including college and the work force.

“These students not only benefit from expertise on modern IT technology, they also gain 21st century skills that will help them succeed in school or any career,” says Lutz Ziob, general manager, Microsoft Learning. “It’s an educational program that will serve these students for the rest of their lives.”

In creating the program, a Microsoft team worked with the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction to create a holistic curriculum to help the state meet its K–12 education mission and goals. One of these core goals was for equality of access. “Early on in the discussions with North Carolina, the state made it clear that if they were going to adopt a curriculum, they wanted it to be available to all students regardless of their school size, location or economic status,” explains Claudine O’Leary, Global Business Development Manager for Microsoft Learning. “So whether North Carolina students are in one of the smallest, most remote high schools or in one of the larger urban high schools, every student will have the same opportunities to benefit from this program and become Microsoft trained and certified.”

Together with the Microsoft team, North Carolina officials have been evaluating the initial efficacy of the program with a pilot project that launched this fall. It includes 42 teachers and 37 schools in the state. Once the Microsoft IT Academy program is adopted across North Carolina, the program will reach more than 2,500 teachers and nearly 200,000 students over the course of three years.

“Ensuring the successful deployment of this statewide adoption of the IT Academy program is essential to Microsoft and a responsibility we take seriously,” says Jeff Johnson, North America Academic Area Lead for Microsoft Learning. “We have created a program for the teachers and administrators of North Carolina to help ensure they are up and running and harnessing the real-world benefits of this program as early as possible. It’s our goal to build a sustainable framework for North Carolina so that teachers and students can continue to benefit from the program for years to come.”

Executives at Microsoft say they are confident the program in North Carolina will become a model for other states interested in working with Microsoft to design similar IT Academy programs in their schools. “We feel great about this program because we know it will change lives,” explains Ziob. “Students of North Carolina’s Microsoft IT Academy will acquire technology and application skills that are essential to be successful in the work force and in a rapidly changing world.”

Microsoft will also be working with North Carolina public schools to broadly roll out Microsoft DreamSpark, a program that provides no-cost access to Microsoft designer, developer and gaming tools and training. In addition, North Carolina plans to broadly implement CareerForward — a free online learning program developed as part of the Microsoft Partners in Learning initiative — which covers career planning, financial literacy and entrepreneurship to help students explore career options and take charge of their future.

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