To help fill thousands of vacant positions in the local technology industry, Virginia's community college system has decided to offer classes developed by high-tech companies to train students for specific jobs, a new direction that has sparked debate about the community colleges' mission.

This month, community college campuses across the state will start providing courses that teach students how to use Cisco Corp. computer equipment. Cisco designed the curriculum, trained the instructors and donated more than $1 million for the program, enough to enroll at least 2,000 students a year.

Community college officials said they are negotiating similar agreements with Oracle Corp., Microsoft Corp. and Novell Inc. aimed at teaching technical skills that are specific to each of those companies.

Technology industry officials said the Virginia initiative is unusual. In several states, community colleges have accepted training grants from technology companies. But in most of those states, including Maryland, the training has not been tailored so narrowly to the needs of one firm.

Joy S. Graham, an assistant chancellor at the Virginia Community College System, said the colleges are responding to a desperate shortage of qualified technology workers. In Northern Virginia, industry officials estimate that they have 23,000 unfilled jobs.

"This is probably the most significant push since the [Virginia] system was created in 1966," Graham said. "There is no question that the need for skilled workers is there, and we are moving quickly to meet it."

But some educators are concerned about the initiative. James Mustachio, director of continuing education and work force development at the Woodbridge campus of Northern Virginia Community College, said he worries that a proliferation of classes such as Cisco's, which can be taken as non-credit courses, might divert students from getting the more general education that will benefit them later in their careers.

"One of the concerns has always been that we're trying to provide a general education," Mustachio said. "The colleges are concerned about educating people, about providing an educated populace . . . not in specific job training."

Graham counters that assertion by saying community colleges need to be responsive to the communities they serve.

"I know that some faculty feel concerned that we are starting short-term programs," she said. "What we hope is that [students] will take these basic skills to get jobs and they will continue their education. . . . The state has more immediate needs that need to be met, and people just don't always have the luxury of a two-year or four-year degree."

Kathy Clark, chief executive of Landmark Systems and chairwoman of the Northern Virginia Technology Council, said that although such training programs are a good idea, it will take much more than that to relieve the local shortage of high-tech workers.

"This is an outstanding effort on one front," Clark said. "But it is not the only solution that needs to be examined. There has to be a concerted effort on getting students involved in math and the sciences much earlier on in the process."

The Cisco program, being offered at 23 campuses, including Woodbridge, consists of six courses that will prepare students for the Cisco Certified Network Associate exam, a test that could place graduates in network engineering jobs paying $35,000 to $40,000, college and Cisco officials said. They said students can complete the courses in a year at a cost of just under $3,000, less than one-third the cost of similar professional programs.

Keith Fox, vice president for corporate marketing at Cisco, which is based in San Jose, said most graduates won't work for Cisco but rather for a company that uses Cisco products. From Cisco's standpoint, the main advantage of the training program is that it provides clients with employees trained to maintain Cisco's network routing equipment, thus boosting sales of the equipment, Fox said.

Eventually, Cisco hopes to get permission from area school districts to offer similar courses to high school students. The Virginia Department of Education already has approved two Cisco courses for high school credit.

Virginia community college officials said it is too early to provide details on the courses that would be developed by Oracle, Microsoft and Novell.

In addition to the classes to be underwritten by private companies, the Virginia legislature appropriated $3.5 million this year for community colleges to expand their high-tech training programs.

The strength of the Cisco program lies in its ability to train almost anyone for a challenging job with good pay, said Judy Becker, community services program director for Northern Virginia Community College.

"We are trying to take that person who is unemployed or underemployed and put them back into the work force," Becker said. "The first classes are for you and me and that hamburger-flipper with no computer experience. It goes from ground zero to very technology-specific."

But Clark warned that the industry is not just looking for people to fill seats at companies. "It is not just a bodies issue; it's a skills issue," Clark said. "We have to be careful that we are drawing the right people in. It is not always easy stuff to learn, and we do really want some of the stars."