Canada - do attitude [IT professionalism in Canada]

Abstract

Canada has been striving hard to bring a formally-recognised IT professional certification to the industry for almost 20 years; so, what can the rest of the world learn from its experience? The current debate surrounding the need for a chartered IT professional status stretches further than the UK, and some other countries have made significant legal headway in establishing it; Canada is a prime case in point. Canada has been a leader in promoting IT professionalism at the highest levels. Canadian Information Processing Society (CIPS) works with universities to accredit their computer science programmes, so that graduates can use their degrees as a stepping stone to ISP designation. Creating a legally-recognised professional certification for IT practitioners is one thing but getting it widely recognised by industry is quite another. CIPs continue to lobby provinces concerning the former, while working with national and international organisations to do latter. Canada is a little over twice the age of the fledgling IT industry that it is trying to formalise and refine into a chartered profession. It has embarked on a significant challenge, and the UK can learn much from following the course of its progress.