Thursday, June 12, 2008

Overview of the PhilNITS Certification

Philippine National IT Standards (PhilNITS) is an organization that implements a nationwide certification program on IT. Currently it is already implementing two levels of certifications (see illustrated exam categories below), the Fundamental Engineer (FE) and the Software Design and Development Engineer (SW), which represents the entry-level qualifications should you wish to become an IT Engineer (you may refer to this earlier post, IT Engineer Career Path, for additional information)


IT Engineer's Examination Categories

The Philippine school system offers several IT related courses (e.g Computer Engineering, Computer Science, IT, etc.), but no consolidated and standard examination that measures if their graduates has reached a required level of knowledge on basic IT principles, skills and technology. But other professionals, e.g. lawyers, nurses, engineers, teachers, doctors, etc., are required to first pass such kind of standardized examination. Having such an exam can be challenging (sometimes even scary) to some, but I believe it would be both advantageous and progressive for most.

If we have such a standard, recognized leaders in the IT industry and the academe can sit together and define, review and continuously improve what would become the benchmark for anyone who wishes to work as an IT engineer. Such standard would also provide schools with an objective basis of the effectiveness of their curriculum. As a step further, if such standard is globally recognized, it will boost the overall competitiveness and attractiveness of our IT Engineers.

PhilNITS is not yet a “bar exam”, so to speak, for IT graduates. But it is already recognized as a Philippine national standard (PNS 2030:2003) for skills of IT engineers, and also for Civil Service Eligibility. It is already recognized amongst several Asian countries (China, India, Korea, Thailand, Vietnam, Myanmar, Malaysia, Mongolia) as part of the of the Information Technology Professional Examination Council (ITPEC) (click here to read more about ITPEC). A PhilNITS certification is also your passport to working in the prestigious Japanese IT industry.

Even for an experienced IT professional, the broad coverage of the PhilNITS exam can be overwhelming, making the exam very challenging to pass. Aside from requiring knowledge on the wide-ranging fundamental concepts of IT, it also requires practical knowledge and skills on designing, programming and testing. A more detailed and technical discussion will be done in a future blog entry, but suffice to say for now that the concepts, skills and technology covered in the exam is comparable to a regular four year Bachelor of Science in Computer Science course.

There is no age limit and no particular level of educational attainment required to take the PhilNITS exam. Anybody who has interest in IT can challenge the PhilNITS certification. And as a vendor-neutral (not proprietary to any vendor such as Microsoft, CISCO, etc.) certification, PhilNITS is an advantage regardless of whether you plan to work for popular companies like Microsoft, IBM, CISCO, etc., or to work on an open source or non-proprietary systems.

People are taking the PhilNITS exam for a variety of reasons. Listed here are just some of the more popular ones :
1. To prove one’s competency in the field of IT
2. To secure a good paying job
3. For IT knowledge and skill measurement and improvement
4. For career advancement or promotion
5. To facilitate application for a working visa to Japan
6. Preferential treatment in job applications to local Japanese companies
7. Priority in availing of training scholarships like AOTS, CICC, etc.

1 comment:

Archie @ training for it said...

Informative post.

PhilNITS Certification is really great and very interesting. This certification will indeed place the IT standards of IT professionals higher, parallel with the bar exam passers.

Thanks for sharing!