Government IT Workers' Skills

[Kennedy, Bob]

This popped up as a news item on my agency's IntrAnet. They must not have
gotten any respondents from us. If our IT people know anything except M$,
its main frame.

Feds have edge in some IT skills
Federal information technology workers outscore their private-sector
counterparts when it comes to understanding certain technologies, including
Unix and Linux, according to a recent report.
The Brainbench report compiled and compared the scores of 4,110 government
and 7,096 private-sector employees who had taken the company's online tests
to evaluate their knowledge of a particular technology.
The result showed that government IT workers scored better than their
private-sector counterparts in disciplines such as Unix, Linux and Microsoft
Corp. technologies.
"I was surprised to see that the government has an edge in the Linux and
Unix and Windows 2000 server administration," said Mike Russiello,
Brainbench's president and chief executive officer. "I wasn't surprised to
see that the government on the whole appears to be better trained on
Microsoft office tools."
Private-sector IT workers outscore government workers in five other
technology areas, including networking, databases, programming language and
Internet technologies skills.
Networking and database work are areas that agencies typically contract out,
Russiello said. When it comes to server administration, "there are still
agencies [that are] protective of the servers and want to run it themselves
and that explains the Linux and Unix skills."
The report, "Closing the Gap: Government and Private Sector IT Skills," was
released Oct. 29.
Brainbench helps companies and individuals quantify and qualify their
skills, Russiello said. "We have a library of about 400 exams that people
can take as individuals or as employees of a company. We measure their
skills. We help individuals take tests and help them become certified." The
company also helps to screen job applicants and measure their skill sets.
Brainbench counts the Defense Information Systems Agency, the Agriculture
Department, the Office of Personnel Management and the State Department
among its government customers.
Source: Federal Computer Week

                                 Best,

                                          Bob Kennedy
                                          a.k.a. Erwin_k_r