LANSING – Michigan schools need to provide incentives for students to take computer science courses, representatives from Microsoft said separately to a joint House Appropriations Education and School Aid Subcommittee and the Senate Appropriations K-12, School Aid and Education Subcommittee on Tuesday.
Allyson Knox, academic program manager at Microsoft, said currently Microsoft has 6,000 job openings. Nationally, there are 122,000 jobs that need to be filled by a person with a bachelor’s degree in computer science, and only 51,000 graduates with such a degree as of last year, she said.
And out of the nation’s 42,000 K-12 schools, only 2,100 are equipped to teach computer science, Knox said. As such, one way to solve the lack of computer science graduates is for more K-12 schools to provide computer science courses, and for high schools to allow computer science courses to count as a math or science credit toward graduation, she said.
She said jobs requiring a computer science education spread across all markets, including manufacturing, retail, financial services and information technology. She also said with more records going digital, those majoring in computer science are needed to develop websites and security systems for health records and the like.
And Scott Thompson, education and workforce strategist with Microsoft, told committee members about the Microsoft IT academy, which provides tools for educators to teach computer science courses and provide certification to students in different grade levels, including post-graduation.
“Having the ability to code and develop is a critical skill that should be learned by every high school student,” he said.
Tim Codd and Bill Young with MyNutratek also testified to the subcommittees. The group provides school districts with a web-based platform of integrated, technology-driven tools that educate and support users toward lifelong wellness.
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