NCK Tech Students Certified as Microsoft Office Specialists

With an increased demand for credentials beyond a High School Diploma, funds have been appropriated from the Kansas Legislature for secondary students and grants from Kansas Board of Regents for post-secondary students to earn a Microsoft Office Specialist (MOS) Certification. The Microsoft Office Specialist Certification is a technical credential that certifies a student’s knowledge of Microsoft Office products and is part of turning 150 secondary schools and 21 post-secondary institutions in Kansas into Microsoft Imagine Academy’s.

The leading institution in charge of the Microsoft Imagine Academy program is North Central Kansas Technical College and their State Coordinator, Logan Staab. The program has just finished their second year and in the 2015-2016 school year 1,342 Certifications were earned by secondary students and 558 certifications were earned by post-secondary students. These numbers quadrupled at the secondary level and tripled at the post-secondary level from the previous year.

Each Microsoft Imagine Academy is provided with e-books, lesson plans, online learning tools and the ability to certify students in-house in Microsoft applications. By providing these resources to each Academy, students are able to become certified in Word, Excel, PowerPoint, SharePoint, Outlook and Access. The top ranking a student is able to earn is the Microsoft Office Specialist Master certification and 15 students in Kansas have been able to achieve this ranking. Post-secondary institutions are also able to certify students as Microsoft Technology Associate (MTA) which includes certification exams over Networking Fundamentals, Security Fundamentals, Cloud Fundamentals and other advanced computer courses. 

All students attending NCK Tech are eligible to take a certification exam and Business Technology teacher Jennifer Younger has implemented the certification processes into her course requirements. NCK Tech accounted for 78 of the 558 certifications earned by post-secondary institutions and Zachary Gibson was one of the fifteen students to become a MOS Master.

“The Microsoft Imagine Academy is a great program that provides students with the resources and opportunity to expand their computer skills in software applications that are used worldwide. The skills they learn from this program will benefit them when they continue with their education or enter the workforce” said Logan Staab, State Coordinator for the Microsoft Imagine Academy Grant.