Multiplying Fractional Numbers
I was reading a report by the New Hampshire Employment Security's Economic and Labor Market Information Bureau (ELMIB) today. Yes I am that sort of wonk sad to say. You can see the report here BTW In any case, in this report they compare projected annual need for jobs/professions with the projected number of people being turned out from educational/training programs. Some numbers stuck out of course. They project a need for 1,202 new teachers a year (on average) and the state is turning out 671 a year. Well that doesn’t work out so well.
In computer and information science and support services they project a need for 825 a year with 364 completers a year. That doesn’t work out so well either. Well unless of course you are one of those people looking for a job in the field. But if you combine the shortage of teachers and the shortage of computer science professionals the chances of meeting the needs of computer science education look downright scary.
It’s a sort of chicken and egg problem. We need more computer people who can teach to turn out the computer science professionals we need. But without enough computer science professionals there is a real incentive for people who could teach computer science to get a higher paying job in industry. There is no easy solution.
Perhaps the best solution is to re-train some of the more experienced computer professionals to become teachers. Now that is somewhat counterintuitive since these are the highest paid computer people. But I have run into more than a few people who feel like they have made their money in industry, are fairly well set for retirement some day but want to give back to the community while they are young enough to work and too young to really retire. From time to time some companies have created programs to make this transition possible by giving financial support for training and a bridge of sorts in income.
What’s in it for the companies? Well they save some money in salaries in the near term as long as they can find people at the beginning of their career to bring online. And of course they are helping to develop the pipeline of people they need in the long run. There is that altruistic helping the community thing that more companies really do believe in than are given credit for as well. The transitioning professions get a smooth way to satisfy their desire to contribute to society. Students win the most though. They get dedicated teachers with a wealth of experience. To be sure not everyone becomes a great teacher but many industry professionals have developed strong presentation skills and have a passion for sharing what they know with others. And that is something one can build good teachers with!
