7 ways K-12 teachers can help close the cybersecurity skills gap

Introduction

Security professionals have grown ubiquitous across many industries. However, the workforce is still seeing a shortage of talent that actually has the knowledge and skills to defend businesses against cyber threats, especially at advanced levels of experience. In fact, due to a global surge in cybersecurity awareness (and consequently, hiring demand), the skills gap has actually widened. 

According to (ISC)², there’s a shortfall of over half-million professionals in the US and over four million globally. And last year, a staggering 65 percent of organizations reported having a lack of cybersecurity personnel, while a lack of experienced/skilled staff is the top risk concern among respondents (51 percent).

The situation is alarming. Fortunately, there is an effective way to fight the skills gap: education! Institutes from universities to colleges should aim to include cybersecurity courses in their curriculum. 

But we should keep in mind that learning starts as early as grade school. K-12 teachers can introduce children to the field early and coordinate with parents to prepare them for future roles. After all, early learning is critical to supplementing career awareness and future growth.

With that being said, how do you teach pupils so young the basics of cybersecurity? K-12 teachers can make use of the following strategies. 

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1. Provide guidelines to prevent cyberbullying

The student experience is intertwined with an online experience. Not only do students communicate daily via blogs, chat rooms and social networks, a good deal of their homework, study material and even study groups are found online. 

But for many students, the online experience can be fraught with potentially traumatic, even life-threatening, interactions with cyberbullies. Cyberbullying doesn’t just hinder personal development; it could also discourage the victims from getting more involved in computer and security studies due to negative associations. 

Teachers can (Read more...)