New computer training certification scare

• Introduction of International Computer Driving Licence will affect millions of workers and jobseekers and may drive many colleges out of business

Want to drive computers? Now you need a licence. This is the new government order expected to push hundreds of colleges across the country out of business.

If you want to teach in government schools you must have this document, referred to as International Computer Driving Licence (ICDL), the new standard for computer literacy in Kenya.

The government, through the Ministry of Information and Communications, now recognises ICDL as the only basic computer literacy certification, which is offered by a few training institutions in Kenya.

In a gazette notice dated November 2, 2009, Information and Communications minister Samuel Poghisio amended the policy guidelines on training in the country and set ICDL certification as the entry level computer certification to demonstrate competence in computer use.

Under the proposed training curriculum, the minimum level for computer literacy will be an International Computer Driving Licence – a vendor neutral standard that is not linked to any software.

“The lack of standards on IT-related courses has encouraged the mushrooming of colleges that offer anything in the name of IT skills,” says Dr Bitange Ndemo, the Information Permanent Secretary.

Kenyan employers have complained loudly that the lack of standardised training has left them with the burden of investing in skills upgrade for any new employees adding to their labour costs.

Quality & efficiency

Last month, the Kenya ICT Board chairman Paul Kukubo proposed that an international academic institution or standards body be hired to develop and implement a software developer certification programme for Kenya.

Many IT experts have blamed the lack of quality and efficiency benchmarks for the slow pace of growth in the ICT. Mr David Svarrer of Digital Age Institute Ltd, a local IT training and consultancy company based in Nairobi, explains that the skills being taught under the ICDL programme include being able to operate office tools such as text processors, spread sheets and presentations.

He added that ICDL does not require a particular brand such as Microsoft Office or Open Office.

“ICDL is meant to teach how to operate a computer in an office setup. Once you have learnt either Microsoft Office or Open Office, you can very easily switch to any other office tool. That again proves that the ICDL education is general and that it does not matter which platform you are being trained on,” Mr Svarrer says.

There are those who say the move to have a computer training standard would be defeatist, arguing that the market should be left to decide what it wants with regard to computer applications.

Because of high demand, learning centres that offer IT and professional development courses are cropping up everywhere. Unfortunately, not many have qualified teaching staff resulting in substandard education.

In June this year, the Ministry of Education drafted a comprehensive information and communication technology (ICT) policy, which is intended to encourage use of computers in schools, colleges and universities to improve quality of teaching and learning.

But while there is no doubt that computer literacy is a prerequisite for school leavers entering the job market, the entire ICT education is in tatters.

With the arrival of undersea fibre optic cables, there has been great interest in ICT now, with an expected boom in computers use over the next three to five years and awareness grows.

“People are taking advantage of others by offering certificates that do not help them attain minimum computer literacy. Further, these certificates are being presented as prove of computer literacy,” says Dr Ndemo.

“Imagine a teacher with such bogus qualification to present this in order to be allowed to teach children in the rural areas. The result would be devastating.”

Unlike other academic fields, very little has been done to train most teachers in ICT skills. Currently, no primary teacher training college offers comprehensive pre-service training in information technology. And whereas computer training is offered in technical colleges, resources in these institutions are either inadequate or misappropriated.

Few schools have sufficient ICT platforms for teachers and students. Estimates indicate that in schools that have computers, the student- computer ratio stands at 150:1. Besides, most of these computers are obsolete hardware that cannot run complex software.

Being aware of this problem, the Kenya National Examination Council dropped computer programming from the KCSE syllabus, but a new drive by the government to boost computer use in schools is expected to reignite interest in developing a syllabus for this course.

Credibility gap

Poor instruction in ICT education and lack of a local accreditation system to acknowledge varying computer skills or ranking of courses in terms of quality and certification has created a credibility gap among trained ICT professionals, with testing focusing mainly on the technical aspect of computers like programming and system analysis.

For instance, recent human resource trends show that Information Technology (IT) proficiency is a priority when it comes to recruitment of accountants. Familiarity with computer software, especially accounting packages, gives a candidate 25 per cent better chance of clinching the job.

“This means that people with no IT experience are disadvantaged,” says Mr Wainaina Wanjiku, the managing director of Corporate Staffing Services, a Nairobi-based human resource consulting and recruiting company. The firm specialises in recruiting and training of accountants in readiness for the modern job market.

The government has taken notice and is acting tough.

“We have been discussing this with a committee over a long period of time. As we intensify the digital villages training, we must have basic open standards and that is what we did.

These are similar standards for many countries around the world including the European Union. These are open standards that would lead this country to greater development,” said Dr Ndemo.

Colleges to be hard hit

But what will appear to be a major obstacle to the ICDL training is its cost compared to the many computer programmes taught in many collages. It costs as little as Sh3,000 to train for about eight basic computer packages, but it will cost about Sh30,000 for ICDL, which has two parts.

Those who have computer training but don’t have the certification can register to do the exam but, again, one must buy log books at a cost of about Sh6,000 and then register for examinations, which cost about Sh1000 per part.

Colleges will need to prove that they have the required facilities to be allowed to be examination centres for ICDL. This will also require them to employ qualified staff.

Through this, analysts predict that many computer training institutions will be forced out of business, but it will be a boom for those already offering the ICDL courses.

jnyabiage@nation.co.ke