Introducing the MTA
Welcome to the first of a series of blog postings that will be dedicated to the new certification developed by Microsoft: the Microsoft Technology Associate (MTA)
The MTA was officially released in July with a steady trickling of all its components over August and September. Its goal is to validate the foundation knowledge required to become Microsoft Certified Professionals.
Prior to the MTA, the first step on the ladder would be a MCTS. However, a MCTS certification would measure product proficiency in a real life environment, and thus would expect a substantial amount of background knowledge. In contrast to this, a MTA certification assumes no prior knowledge.
Currently, the MTA certification is aimed at the educational market and it is Microsoft’s goal that students and technology educators champion this qualification and help build the next generation workforce.
A lot of school students are always looking towards IT as a career, but have no idea how to start. A MCTS qualification assumes job role experience and requires a significant amount of time and investment to be truly worthwhile. Thus the MTA is a (relatively) low-cost and less time consuming first step, which allows a taster of the knowledge required to be successful in the IT industry. Hence the target age group for the MTA is 15 to 24!
There are currently 7 MTA certifications.
Three of them aimed at the IT Professional track: Networking, Security and Server Administration Fundamentals
Three of them aimed at Developers: Software, Windows, and Web Development Fundamentals
One of them aimed at Database Admins: Database Administration Fundamentals
Click the image to download a PDF
Before you start to call your nearest Prometric center to take the exams –STOP! The exams are administered by Certiport Centres – and ONLY by Academic institutions.
If you are an academic institution and wish to integrate the MTA into your curriculum, get in touch – I am an official Educational Consultant for the MTA and can help you to “unpack” it and get you going in no time!
Coming up next…getting your institution ready for delivering the MTA!
