SQA and Microsoft links

I met with Iain Shand of Cardonald College this afternoon to discuss his new role as the ITPCS Manager. Cardonald is the lead centre for the Microsoft IT Academy programme and Iain supports 15 centres across Scotland.

Microsoft is one of several vendors whose curriculum we try to incorporate inside of SQA awards. There are presently three PDAs linked to Microsoft certification. We recently commissioned Deryck Nutley to develop a number of new HN units to map onto Microsoft’s new Windows 7 curriculum. We’re hoping to have these units added to the HNC/D Computing and Networking awards before the end of this year.

It is a real strength of computing qualifications that they cover the same ground as many vendor awards. This means that students can leave college with national qualifications (such as an HNC) and internationally recognised vendor qualifications (such as Microsoft’s Desktop Support) simply by doing a single SQA qualification.

Contact Iain if you want to know more about Microsoft certification or contact Caroline about SQA’s links with IT vendors.

2 Comments

I am delighted that Deryck Nutley is going to be writing units to link to Windows 7. Stow is definitely interested in this.

CA Thomson

What about the Server 2008 units? We have been delivering Server 2008 for two years and there are definite problems in matching the new OS to the existing units and even bigger problems in matching them to Microsoft’s new examination structure. Hopefully Network Server Operating System will disappear and be replaced by an upgraded version of Network Infrastructure and Active DIrectory, Domain Admin and Enterprise Admin qualifications that properly map to the new Microsoft Units.

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