Tuesday, October 02, 2007 IT firm helps upgrade exam, wants applicants to hurdle it
A DIGITAL imaging solutions company has made the Philippine Information Technology General Certification Examination (Phil-IT GCE) a requirement from their applicants.
As a show of support to the certification exam, Epson Philippines Corp. (Epson) signed a memorandum of agreement Friday with the Cebu Educational Development Foundation for IT (Cedf-it) and donated P10,000 for the technical upgrading of the examination, said Cedf-it senior project manager Arnold Banogon.
“They want to be assured that their applicants, apart from submitting the transcript of records, have also passed the Phil- IT GCE. The exam will be an added advantage for them (applicants),” he said.
The Phil-IT GCE, which Cedf-it initiated, is a set of examinations based on standards developed by the foundation, in collaboration with www.itros.ph, the European Chamber of Commerce of the Philippines and the European IT Service Center Foundation.
Apart from Epson, the competency examination is recognized by Cedf-it’s members from the industry, such as Lexmark International Inc., Cebu Property Ventures and Development Corp., Alliance Software, iCatch IT, iComm International and NEC Te-lecom Software Philippines, among others.
Requirement
As such, they will require their future IT employees to pass the examination, Banogon told Sun.Star Cebu.
He said Cedf-it has been talking with other IT certification bodies to ensure that its examinations are recognized as valid measurements of an IT professional’s knowledge and abilities.
As more industry players continue to distinguish the Phil-IT GCE exam, this will “raise the confidence” of other colleges and universities and encourage their graduating classes to participate, Banogon said.
The second Phil-IT GCE this year is scheduled between Oct. 6 and 20 with an estimated 500 to 600 examinees from nearly 35 schools in Cebu and neighboring provinces.
The two-hour exam, which costs P300 per examinee, will cover 100 items.
Difficulties
Since its launching two years ago, 70 percent of the Phil-IT GCE takers have passed the test, Banogon said.
But unlike previous examinations, he said the upcoming test will not be done online simultaneously.
“There have been technical difficulties in the encoding because of unstable Internet connection. We don’t want to take chances,” he explained.
To avoid the leakage of test items, Banogon said the scheduled examination date of a participating school will only be known to the deans.
Benchmark
“We also upgrade the test questions every year to ensure confidentiality,” he added.
Cedf-it executive director Bonifacio Belen earlier said participating in the Phil-IT GCE will serve as a benchmark for smaller schools “to level with the bigger ones.”
“The certification will encourage IT schools to work hard in increasing the quality of IT learning because they will have to ensure that their IT graduates will pass the certification. This will also push our IT students to study and learn IT by heart in order to pass the exam,” Belen said. (MMM)
