Margie Sorensen.mov
Hi, I’m Margie Sorensen, from the Information Technology Training Institute. I’m also on the board of the New Zealand Association of Private Education Providers.
In the IT field, we certainly have a preponderance of qualifications; partly because the IT field, as you can well appreciate, is really dynamic – things are changing really, really quickly. And we, as PTEs, have prided ourselves on being fleet-footed and being able to meet industry demands really quickly. This has led, of course, to a whole lot of qualifications.
A lot of us have felt that these qualifications have been our brand, and have prided ourselves on establishing really sound programmes, within our qualification, to meet industry requirements.
But, in actual fact, from an employer’s perspective, I’m not certain that all these qualification are our brand. As an employer, I’m looking for one qualification – I don’t want to look for a series of them. Just like the Harvard MBA, I’m looking for an MBA, and it’s the institution that is the brand; it’s the programme that is leading up to that qualification that is meaningful to me as an employer.
The IT qualifications review wasn’t due until 2013, but because, again, because our industry is really dynamic, we decided we wanted to get this underway sooner rather than later and got a group of PTEs, who are members of NZAPEP, together, to talk about what we needed to do.
So we involved Microsoft, and CompTIA particularly, in the early stages of our programme design. And we found that, internationally, a lot of work has been done in the field. A group, particularly, from England, and then again in Singapore, and now in Australia, are utilising the same framework.
So agreed together that this would be ideal – why reinvent the wheel? Before we went too far down the track, we decided that it was really important that we involve all of the other tertiary providers in the sector, to make sure that we were all on the home page and got together through the computer society with CITRENZ.
That meeting was really constructive, and it was really clear that everyone was on the same page and wanted the same outcomes, ultimately.
All of us clearly have our own objectives and our own needs, and therefore our own agendas, though this whole process, and it’s really, really important that we don’t lose sight of those.But it’s also really important that we have enough elasticity and ability to listen to other perspectives to make sure that this thing works properly for everyone.
So, as PTE owners, it’s really important that we actively engage in this process. We have a lot at stake here. It is important that the qualification is a shell that is meaningful for us. It’s important that we retain the ability to be fleet-footed, so that it’s not too rigid. We have to make sure that the others who are involved in the process understand our needs, to make the most of this.
I believe that by using all the resources that are available to us, by grabbing the bull by the horns, by becoming really involved in that whole design process, that we will all come out winners in the end.