Japan is gradually letting go of its absolute control over the development of an IT standards examination for professionals in an effort to give other Asian countries a chance to reformat their IT exam for a more region-wide purpose.

Members of the Information Technology Professional Examination Council (ITPEC) will be meeting on July 3 in Manila to discuss changes in the Japanese IT professional standards exams being used in several countries.

ITPEC is composed of IT exam providers from the Philippines, Malaysia, Thailand, Vietnam, Myanmar and Mongolia, that all use as basis Japan’s IT Engineer’s Examination (ITEE) for their local IT exams.

ITEE is one of the most stringent IT exams for professional workers in Japan and ITPEC members have different brand names for each country. For example, the Philippines calls it the Philippine National IT Standards Foundation (PHILNITS). Malaysia calls it Multimedia Technology Enhancement and Operations Sendirian Berhad (METEOR); Myanmar Computer Federation (MCF) in Myanmar; Vietnam IT Examination and Training, among others.

Just recently, South Korea and People’s Republic of China indicated their intention to be part of ITPEC.

ITPEC Chairman and PHILNITS President Maricor Akol told INQ7.NET that the purpose of the reformat of the Japanese IT exam was to ensure that those who pass the exam are able to work in other Asian countries as IT professionals, not just in Japan.

Akol noted that some of those who pass PHILNITS, MCF and METEOR do not always go to Japan but also work in other Asian countries. Thus, the Japanese IT exam has to be redeveloped to suit the requirements of other Asian countries.

Akol added that Japan was amenable to and even encouraged the reformat of their exams though the initial outcome of ITPEC’s meeting in July would most likely result in 50 percent of the exam still coming from the original Japanese IT exam content and the rest from the other ITPEC members.

“The IT professional is becoming more global and we want to make sure that our IT standards would be accepted in other Asian countries. Eventually, when South Korea and China become part of ITPEC, we expect them to contribute more to the reformatting,” Akol said.


Source: Philippine Daily Inquirer (Published on 06/28/06)