Written Testimony of William H. Gates

(page 6 of 10)

"⁸ Achieving this goal will require both funds and innovative ideas. For high schools, we should aim to recruit 10,000 new science and mathematics teachers annually and strengthen the skills of existing teachers. To expand enrollment in post-secondary math and science programs, we should provide 25,000 new four-year, competitive undergraduate scholarships each year to U.S. citizens attending U.S. institutions and fund 5000 new graduate fellowships each year. America's young people must come to see STEM degrees as opening a window to opportunity. If we fail at this, we simply will be unable to compete with the emerging innovative powerhouses abroad.

C. Greater opportunities for job training

Even as we work to improve educational opportunities in our school systems and universities, we cannot lose sight of the need to constantly upgrade and enhance the skills and expertise of those people already in our workforce. Securing America's global competitiveness requires not only a highly educated pool of innovators, but also a workforce that is equipped with the skills necessary to use technology effectively. In today's economy, that means a high degree of basic literacy, an increasing level of computing skills, and the ability to create, analyze and communicate knowledge.

Over the next several years, 6 out of every 10 new jobs will be in professional and service-related occupations.⁹ Given the state of our educational system, it is not surprising that U.S. companies are reporting serious shortages of skilled workers.¹⁰ According to a 2005 U.S. Department of Education study, only 13 percent of American adults are proficient in the knowledge and skills needed to search, comprehend and use information, or to perform computational tasks.¹¹ This yawning gap between America's economic needs and the skills of its workforce indicates that as a nation we are not doing nearly enough to equip and continuously improve the capabilities of American workers.

Part of this task must fall to the private sector. For its part, Microsoft over the past decade has launched a range of both commercial and philanthropic programs aimed at providing IT skills training to U.S. workers. Our commercial offerings include the Microsoft Learning program, which provides IT skills training and certification in cooperation with hundreds of commercial partners, and the Microsoft IT Academy, which provides online IT training programs and other resources to accredited educational institutions across the United States.

But several years ago, we decided to focus our community outreach programs to support training in basic computing and Internet skills-a program we call Unlimited Potential. Through this program, we provide the curriculum, software and grants to support digital skills training in community learning centers run by government and non-government agencies throughout the country and around the world. For example, last year, Microsoft partnered with the U.S. Department of Labor to provide $3.5 million in cash and software to twenty of the Department's One-Stop Career Centers located throughout the country. We also donated our innovative Digital Literacy curriculum to those Centers to advance their technology training mission. We have similar partnerships with the Boys and Girls Clubs, the National Urban League and with many development agencies and NGOs in more than 100 countries.

In combination with our parallel program for school-based training, Partners in Learning, our ambition is to reach a quarter of a billion people by the end of this decade. Meanwhile, we have begun reaching out to other companies, industry associations and state agencies to build a workforce alliance that will promote the digital skills needed to compete in a wide range of industry and service sectors.

As a nation, our goal should be to ensure that, by 2010, every job seeker, every displaced worker, and every individual in the U.S. workforce has access to the education and training they need to succeed in the knowledge economy. This means embracing the concept of "lifelong learning" as part of the normal career path of American workers, so that they can use new technologies and meet new challenges.