The system of career promotion of networking professionals based on industrial certificates

This paper is dedicated to the issues related to the system of career promotion of professionals in the field of computer networks based on industrial certificates. The EU member countries face a serious shortage of professionals in development and care of information and communication technologies. It is expected that by 2008 the EU countries could be short of as many as 22 thousand professionals in the field of computer networks and the Slovak Republic of more than 3 thousand professionals. This are the conclusions of a study made by IDC, prominent company involved in the market research that was worked out in cooperation with EU and OECD. The study results are alarming for individual member countries and represent a serious challenge to the companies. The shortage of professionals will hamper competitiveness and growth in Europe as modern technologies would not be used in an optimum way. This report is dedicated to the results of this study and also to the successful concept of education of professionals in the Slovak Republic - network academic program Cisco (Networking Academy) that effectively uses modern communication technologies also for the organization of the educational process itself.