California Community Colleges Create Statewide Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) Collaborative in Response to Strong ICT Employment Demand Detailed in New Report

PRESS RELEASE

Contact: James B. Jones, Mid-Pacific ICT Center (MPICT)
Office: 415.239.3600 / Cell: 415.867.6616
Office E-mail: jjones@mpict.org

Contact: John Carrese, CCC Economic and Workforce Development Centers of Excellence
Office: 415.267.6565 / Cell: 510.213.0642
Office E-mail: jcarrese@ccsf.edu

Contact: Pierre Thiry, CCC ICT Discipline/Industry Collaborative
Office: 415.239.3594 / Cell: 510. 701.1301
Office E-mail: pthiry@ccsf.edu

California Community Colleges Create Statewide Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) Collaborative in Response to Strong ICT Employment Demand Detailed in New Report

The collaborative will work to coordinate, improve and promote ICT education and workforce development throughout the California community college system

SAN FRANCISCO, Calif. - Mid-Pacific ICT Center (MPICT) Executive Director James Jones and California Community College (CCC) Economic and Workforce Development Center of Excellence Director John Carrese today announced the availability of a new report on information and communication technologies (ICT) in California and the creation of a new ICT Collaborative to coordinate, improve and promote ICT education and workforce development throughout the 112 campuses of the California community college system.

In the information, knowledge and innovation economies of the 21st century, we increasingly depend on ICT – as students, workers, organizations and society.

Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) is a superset term encompassing all rapidly emerging, evolving, and converging computer, software, networking, telecommunications, Internet, programming, and information systems technologies. ICT is a comprehensive framework for organizing these inter-related, interdependent and rapidly changing high-tech fields and industries - and the ICT workforce that spans across organizations of all sizes, kinds types and industries. The ICT term is widely used outside the U.S., for example, by the United Nations, European Union, World Bank, and International Telecommunications Union.

According to the report, aggregated ICT industry and employment sectors are bigger and more strategically important than historically recognized in the U.S. and in California.

• ICT industries include about 4% of companies, 6% of private sector revenues, 4% of workers and 12% of private sector wages in California, with much higher job growth and compensation expected than for most other industries or the nation as a whole.

• ICT Workforce occupations span and are strategically important to all industries and most organizations, which leverage ICT for productivity. ICT occupations throughout the economy employ more than a million people in California today, include about 1 in 20 private sector jobs in the U.S. and in California, have strong job growth prospects, and pay median wages about twice the California average. ICT occupations are California’s 8th largest occupational cluster by job count, and employers are having difficulties hiring appropriately skilled ICT Workforce – even in this period of high unemployment.

The report, available for download free at www.mpict.org/ict_study_phase3.html, provides current ICT labor market information, analysis of CCC educational credentials related to ICT, plain language tools for effective communication in this complex and fast changing arena, advice and business/industry input on how to improve community college ICT education and workforce development efforts, and recommendations for further study.

The report also announces a coordinated response to this important strategic sector with the creation of a new CCC ICT Collaborative. The collaborative will work to coordinate and improve ICT related program offerings of the 112 campuses in the CCC system. The collaborative will build on work by the Mid-Pacific ICT Center (MPICT), a National Science Foundation Advanced Technological Education Center of Excellence working to improve 2-year college ICT education in a region that includes northern California.

The California Community Colleges is the largest system of higher education in the nation. It is composed of 72 districts and 112 colleges serving 2.76 million students per year. Community colleges supply workforce training, basic skills courses in English and math, and prepare students for transfer to four-year colleges and universities.

The Centers of Excellence (COE), funded in part by the Chancellor’s Office, California Community Colleges, Economic and Workforce Development Program, in partnership with business and industry, deliver regional workforce research customized for community college decision making and resource development.

The Mid-Pacific ICT (MPICT) Center is funded in part by the National Science Foundation Advanced Technological Education program to coordinate, improve and promote ICT education, with an emphasis on 2-year colleges, in northern California, northern Nevada, southern Oregon, Hawaii and the Pacific Territories.