Demand for Classes Exceeds Teacher Supply
Seeking to meet a crushing demand for a coveted technical certificate, Moorpark College is caught in a paradox.
Students are breaking down the doors to enroll in classes leading to certification as a computer network engineer by software giant Microsoft Corp., but teachers are a lot harder to come by.
The reason? Cold, hard cash.
While the college pays part-time teachers up to $36 an hour, network engineers capable of leading the courses are in great demand in the private sector, where they routinely earn $800 a day.
Hence, the great student demand for the classes, officials say.
“The network industry is expanding so fast that there are lots of jobs looking for these type of people,” said Sheila Tan, Moorpark College’s computer science coordinator.
The dearth of teaching applicants became so severe the department decided last month to cancel its five summer computer classes on networks. The school is even considering asking businesses to contribute money for instructors’ salaries to provide greater teaching incentives, said Floyd Martin, dean of the college’s math, science and engineering department.
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Although the college wants to help students, “we can’t unless we have qualified teachers to teach these classes,” Martin said. “It’s too risky to have five classes we don’t have teachers for when we know we’ll have a lot of students to fill the classes. It would be better for the college not to build false hopes.”
Moorpark College began offering the computer program last fall. It consists of four core courses and two electives, including classes on Windows NT, a popular operating system for networked computers often used by businesses.
If a student can take all six courses and pass six different exams offered by Microsoft Corp., they can become a Microsoft-certified engineer, said Tan, who put together the program.
Although training companies offer the course for up to $8,000, few community colleges--which typically charge modest fees--have done so. Moorpark, which charges $117 for its program, is the only community college in Ventura or Santa Barbara counties to offer the training, and Tan knows of only one other community college--in Phoenix--anywhere.
Moorpark College managed to find instructors for the fall and spring semesters by advertising. But many of those teaching this spring will be busy during the summer, when many consultants and network specialists take additional training. And efforts to advertise for new teachers failed miserably.
The difficulty of attracting qualified teachers to these courses doesn’t come as a surprise to the college officials or those in the industry. The college offers $36 an hour for the teachers with a maximum of 10 hours of teaching per week, meaning that the most a teacher will earn is $360 a week.
Most consultants can earn more than double that in a day, said Maria Lucas, owner of Camarillo-based Vortex Productivity Center, which provides Microsoft certified training.
“The problem is these guys can bill up to $800 a day . . . that’s $4,000 a week,” Lucas said. “If they are a trainer, they don’t want 10 hours, they want a bigger commitment. I just don’t know of anyone who would do it for that price.”
At Moorpark, about half of those enrolled in the computer classes already have jobs such as network administrators, and are taking the class to update their skills or to seek promotions, Tan said.
Some who did not get into past classes have written the college letters saying, “I have to do it because my boss says so, or else,” said Tan, gesturing with her thumb like an umpire.
Scott Kemp, an 18-year-old Moorpark College student and president of the campus’ Math, Engineering and Science Assn., said the program could become even more popular if it continues.
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“This would be an extremely valuable tool once they get out of college and get into industry and I think a lot of college students know that,” Kemp said. “I know several students that enrolled in this course and were very disappointed to know it was canceled. . . . Even though you don’t need this for a degree, it’s extremely valuable.”
The college hopes to find enough qualified teaching applicants to reopen the course during the fall.
But Tan acknowledges that this is a difficult task. Most of the people qualified for the job already have full-time jobs and much of their work requires backing up systems once most workers leave their jobs at 5 p.m.
The money won’t be much of an incentive for the teaching positions at Moorpark College. In the past, the college has found some instructors from the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Rockwell Industries and UCLA. They said they did it mainly for fun and the love of teaching, Tan said.
It’s not for the money, Tan said. “The issue here is you get the best reward for teaching students . . . the communication and the sharing of knowledge.”
