I am a drafting instructor for a technical school and I am requesting input from other CAD professionals.

Autodesk is rolling out a new "User" certification for high school students. This seems to be in response to the Government making a rather large amount of money available if a student gets an "industry certification" while in high school. While I think this is an outstanding goal, my problem is this. Autodesk already offers 2 certifications for AutoCAD, Associate and Professional. Is the “User” exam an “industry certification” or a high school certification? Part of the federal regulation is that a school must have a 50% pass rate on the certification exam to get the funding. Should the test be designed to increase the passing rate?

In their own FAQ sheet Autodesk calls it “a new certification offering that meets the needs of schools”. Will the student who passes the “User” certification have the skills required to be successful in the workforce or will they need the additional skills represented by the Associate and Professional certifications as they “move forward with additional levels of certification as they attend college and begin working in their design careers”. This is also a quote from the FAQ sheet.

At our technical school there is about a 50% pass rate on the existing exams. We have both adult and high school students. The high school students are “duel enrolled” for part of the day.

Specifically:
How important is certification if you are looking to hire a new cad tech?
Is it more important to be certified if you are right out of school?
Do the existing exams give an accurate assessment of cad skills?
Do we need a third level of certification?

I think you can tell how I feel about this but I need your input to see if I need to adjust my thinking.

Any other general comments are welcome as well.

Thanks
Chuck