Community Post

25 July 2011

PMIEF Helps Build the Next Generation of Project Managers

Today around the globe, young people are learning project management because of the support of and the educational resources provided by the PMI Educational Foundation (PMIEF), a charitable organization.

These students not only acquire new skills for the 21st century workforce but also gain an awareness of the project management profession. Later in life, they may choose this as their career path and become the project managers of the future.

Introducing young people to project management early helps build a pool of future project managers and provides them with skills they can use throughout their lives.

How early can you start teaching project management?

For Elementary School Students
The PMI Northern Italy Chapter has proven that children as young as ages 6 to 11 can learn basic project management skills.

Chapter volunteers developed a fun and engaging tool called Project Our Theater to introduce project management concepts.  This tool is available in English, French, Spanish and Italian at no cost for noncommercial use.

If you are interested in teaching project management or volunteering your time with your local PMI chapter to teach children, this resource can help you implement a project-based learning program.

A number of other educational resources besides Project Our Theater can be found under the Learning Zone menu tab on the PMIEF website.

Youth-based project management organizations in Brazil, the United States and the Dominican Republic are using these PMIEF resources.

For Secondary School Students
Teens can also benefit from project-based learning and learning project management skills.

PMIEF’s PM Toolkit for Youth and PM Skills for Life are both perfect educational resources for working with this age group. Teachers, parents and volunteers from around the world have used both of these tools for teaching project management.

Educators are starting to see the value in teaching project management skills to secondary school students.

The states of North Carolina and Washington (USA) are developing state-wide project management programs for secondary school students. PMI members have begun conversations with ministries of education in a handful of other countries as well. Programs were recently started in secondary schools in Poland and Australia using PMIEF tools.

Skills for Students Everywhere
To complement its work with youth, PMIEF also offers numerous academic and training scholarships for college students, teachers, project managers and staff members of not-for-profit and nongovernmental organizations. For more information, visit www.pmief.org or email pmief@pmi.org.