USENIX lately started a new journal called JESA to tackle the issue of education for Systemadministrators. For the first issue Tom Limoncelli wrote an open letter which tries to summarize the current situation the industry faces. For me it's kind of a problem statement one can use to start thinking about solutions.

Currently I don't see something like a formal education to call yourself Systemadministrator or Systemengineer anywhere near. And I don't think it's required. But still the expectations I see on both ends - employer and employee - often differ a lot in all kind of directions.

In Germany we've a very organized (some call it bureaucratic) system of non academic education, organized as an apprenticeship. And like Tom wrote in the open letter mentioned above many IT departments do not follow best practise, and even more do so unintentionally because they never got that far. But what kind of people can you expect from this system when they got formed for three years in a rather sloppy environment? So there is a lot to fix, but as usual I've doubts when I think about possible solutions. Do I expect too much from the education system and/or the people? Do I look at the wrong people? Is this education system the right system to educate this kind of people I'd like to work with?