{"id":418697,"date":"2021-03-03T01:00:15","date_gmt":"2021-03-03T00:00:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pulse.microsoft.com\/?p=418697"},"modified":"2021-03-01T13:12:49","modified_gmt":"2021-03-01T12:12:49","slug":"fa2-microsoft-partnership-with-cct","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pulse.microsoft.com\/en-ie\/skill-forward-en-ie\/na\/fa2-microsoft-partnership-with-cct\/","title":{"rendered":"Microsoft partnership with FIT"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>Despite being amid a technological revolution, empowering individuals with the appropriate digital skills remains our greatest challenge. <\/strong><\/p>\n<p><span data-contrast=\"auto\">The number of young people who are pursuing STEM careers is steadily decreasing; and only half of all students who do choose STEM courses end up in STEM careers. Furthermore, we are also <\/span><span data-contrast=\"auto\">in the midst of<\/span><span data-contrast=\"auto\">\u00a0a skills gap, by 2022 it is estimated that there will be 6.2 million new IT jobs unfilled and only 2% of candidates are expected to have the right qualifications to fill these roles.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><span data-ccp-props=\"{&quot;201341983&quot;:0,&quot;335559740&quot;:257}\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span data-contrast=\"auto\">There is a lot of discussion about how best to attract individuals to undertake\u00a0<\/span><span data-contrast=\"auto\">programmes<\/span><span data-contrast=\"auto\">\u00a0of studies with a focus on digital skills.\u00a0<\/span><span data-contrast=\"auto\">In particular, increase<\/span><span data-contrast=\"auto\">\u00a0participation of those who are currently under-represented in STEM fields (<\/span><span data-contrast=\"auto\">i.e.<\/span><span data-contrast=\"auto\"> females and socio-economically disadvantaged groups) is a key challenge.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span class=\"TextRun BCX8 SCXW138193926\" lang=\"EN-US\" xml:lang=\"EN-US\" data-contrast=\"auto\"><span class=\"NormalTextRun BCX8 SCXW138193926\">To address this<\/span><\/span><span class=\"TextRun BCX8 SCXW138193926\" lang=\"EN-US\" xml:lang=\"EN-US\" data-contrast=\"auto\"><span class=\"NormalTextRun BCX8 SCXW138193926\"> growing crisis,\u00a0<\/span><\/span><span class=\"TextRun BCX8 SCXW138193926\" lang=\"EN-IE\" xml:lang=\"EN-IE\" data-contrast=\"auto\"><span class=\"NormalTextRun BCX8 SCXW138193926\">StepIn2Tech<\/span><\/span><span class=\"TextRun BCX8 SCXW138193926\" lang=\"EN-IE\" xml:lang=\"EN-IE\" data-contrast=\"auto\"><span class=\"NormalTextRun BCX8 SCXW138193926\"> is a new programme developed by Microsoft, in partnership with FIT, that will provide digital literacy skills to more than 10,000 people over the next two years. Whether temporarily or permanently displaced from employment, recently left school or college, or mid-career and looking for digital qualifications, StepIn2Tech will provide you with much sought after technical skills that will\u00a0<\/span><\/span><span class=\"TextRun BCX8 SCXW138193926\" lang=\"EN-IE\" xml:lang=\"EN-IE\" data-contrast=\"auto\"><span class=\"NormalTextRun AdvancedProofingIssueV2 BCX8 SCXW138193926\">open up<\/span><\/span><span class=\"TextRun BCX8 SCXW138193926\" lang=\"EN-IE\" xml:lang=\"EN-IE\" data-contrast=\"auto\"><span class=\"NormalTextRun BCX8 SCXW138193926\">\u00a0a range of new opportunities &#8211; from further training and education to gain an entry level role in the growing technology sector, to helping to drive digital transformation in a traditional sector.\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Despite being amid a technological revolution, empowering individuals with the appropriate digital skills remains our greatest challenge. The number of young people who are pursuing STEM careers is steadily decreasing; and only half of all students who do choose STEM courses end up in STEM careers. Furthermore, we are also in the midst of\u00a0a skills [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":838,"featured_media":418940,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"class_list":["post-418697","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-none-en-ie","specials-skill-forward-en-ie","stories-employability-en-ie","stories-how-can-i-skill-myself-for-new-job-opportunities-en-ie","businessPriorities-digital-transformation-en-ie"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pulse.microsoft.com\/en-ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/418697"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pulse.microsoft.com\/en-ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pulse.microsoft.com\/en-ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pulse.microsoft.com\/en-ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/838"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pulse.microsoft.com\/en-ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=418697"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/pulse.microsoft.com\/en-ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/418697\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":445551,"href":"https:\/\/pulse.microsoft.com\/en-ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/418697\/revisions\/445551"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pulse.microsoft.com\/en-ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/418940"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pulse.microsoft.com\/en-ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=418697"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pulse.microsoft.com\/en-ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=418697"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}