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Flagship 2 CIDA/TESDA/CEDF-IT Professional Certification Standards & Examination

Project Rationale

It is of vital importance to note that these five areas; C/C++, JAVA, Visual Basic Software Programmers, CAD Operators & Networking Engineers have been specified by CEDF-IT's industry partners as the ones in which they urgently need a set of standards and evaluation instruments, i.e., professional certification procedures, to increase the possibility, if not absolutely guarantee, the hiring of Cebu IT practitioners, professionals, or recent graduates from CEDF-IT member-schools.

Project Phase

The project will consist of two phases: Phase 1 will cover the setting-up of IT Occupational Skills Standards for the five areas; and, Phase 2 will focus on the actual design of the assessment instruments to be used as the basis for the certification by CIDA/TESDA/CEDF-IT for these five IT areas.

Project Objectives

This high-impact program hopes to make CEDF-IT a credible nation-wide certifying entity among IT practitioners.  CEDF-IT has been commissioned to precisely:

1. To establish the IT Occupational Skills Standards initially for the following job requirements: C/C++, JAVA, Visual Basic Programmers, Computer Aided Design (CAD) Operators, and Networking Engineers.
2. To design the corresponding Competency Assessment Instruments.

Project Benefits and Beneficiaries

This project shall be of immense benefit to the IT practitioners and professionals in Cebu and elsewhere.  At the moment, the set of standards and testing instruments in use or available, in so far as the five IT areas of this project are concerned, are either non-existent, hardly accessible, or simply too expensive.  By making available an affordable and accessible set of standards and examination certification procedures in the five IT areas, the benefits of the project shall soon be felt by the following:

1. Among the eight (8) CEDF-IT member-schools, all the one hundred eighty (180) IT instructors shall be "sponsored" by their respective departments to take the certification and thus be able to determine their real competency levels.
2. Still among the CEDF-IT member-schools, their yearly batch of IT graduates shall henceforth have a chance to "validate" their genuine knowledge and skills levels in the specific areas of specialization.
3. Non-CEDF-IT members, teachers or graduates of both among the formal and non-formal IT schools, shall be able to likewise avail of a set of standards and evaluation procedures to find out their true competency levels.
4. The IT industry and other businesses desiring to employ competent IT professionals shall thus be equipped with a set of pre-employment testing instruments in the 5 IT areas, generated with industry's current needs foremost in mind.
5. Of course, the overall IT sector (schools, industry, government, NGOs) that continually seek to know their levels of competency and thus be able to revise curricula, training or teaching strategies, infrastructures and facilities, in view of more credible and up-to-date evaluation indicators.

Project Implementation Scheme & Detailed Mechanics

To achieve the above-enumerated objectives, CEDF-IT shall form a team of experts from among its membership, they will be invited to a series of brainstorming/working sessions in the different IT professional certification areas.  For the Phase 1 and 2, the IT experts belonging to the five IT areas will meet on a pre-agreed schedule, coordinated through an initial general orientation meeting.

For the testing instruments to be considered "valid" , a formal Validation Process has been incorporated into the project.  This shall consist of conducting a Cebu-wide Certification Testing in the 5 IT areas.

To ensure that the standards and the testing instruments in the five (5) IT areas remain valid, updated, and relevant for the IT practitioners/professionals and companies that will depend on them for the evaluation of the corresponding required expertise, CEDF-IT's Standards and Assessment Committee shall be convened, for a two-day workshop once a year, to sit as "CEDF-IT's Board of Reviewers on IT Professional Certification".

To be assisted by a group of IT experts, this Board shall direct revisions on both the standards and the tests instruments, as they may deem necessary.

Once the validation process has been completed, CEDF-IT will be officially authorized by CIDA & TESDA to conduct regular professional certification examinations on the 5 IT areas.

CEDF-IT may choose to conduct the examinations on a monthly, quarterly or even bi-yearly to yearly basis.  It may also decide to do so for a public audience or privately in collaboration with the participating industry partners.  In effect, there is really a lot of flexibility afforded to CEDF-IT.  The examinations will most probably take half-day to an entire day, depending on the standards and instruments that will be the main outputs of this project.  In Principle, however, the testing will consist of two parts - theory and practice.  Thus, hands-on programming in computer will be an integral component of the examination procedure.

Other Important Considerations

The impact of our project is national in scope.  The professional standards that would be established in the 5 IT areas, inclusive of the assessment instruments and the corresponding CIDA/TESDA/CEDF-IT certification that shall follow suit, would necessarily be bestowed equal recognition and effect in all parts of our archipelago.

CEDF-IT shall process propriety privilege over the standards, and assessment instrument and certification procedures being its originator and author.  CEDF-IT would thereby generate an on-going source of income, with the capacity to "franchise" its exclusive right to qualified testing and review centers throughout the Philippines; based on "franchising" criteria, certification pricing, and other related rules and regulations that it could in due time establish.

Furthermore, the experience gained from this present project would enable CEDF-IT to replicate the methodology and approach to setting-up standards and designing assessment instruments in other computer competency skills that fall within its area of concern and expertise.

Role of Academe and Industry Partners

This proposal is essentially an invitation for IT industry leaders and the academe to participate in the noble objective of uplifting the standards of IT professionals through a credible certification instrument, covering IT areas relevant to current industry needs. Being a non-profit, service-oriented organization, the social impact of our proposal is a prime motivating factor for CEDF-IT.

Industry partners, however, may also look at the practical business side of the proposal.  CEDF-IT realizes that each firm has its own HRD unit tasked with evaluating the IT competence of prospective employees, through in-house testing procedures and interviews.  For sure, the HRD unit "spends" a specific amount for testing, per prospective employee.  We propose that in place of conducting internal testing, our industry partners could instead adopt CEDF-IT's standards and assessment instruments.  Consequently, the budgeted amount for testing may be utilized to "pay" CEDF-IT for the evaluation services.

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