Creating Intriguing Synergies with Course Offerings: Integrating industry qualifications - An ITP perspective

Aligning tertiary institute courses and programmes with internationally recognised industry qualifications has been the subject of various publications (Atkins 2002, Gutierrez and Tawa, 2003) and has engendered much debate among academics for several years now; e.g. Strategic Industry Qualifications Forum: NACCQ 14th Annual Conference 2001 at EIT. This initiative is not unique to the Information and Communications Technology (ICT) sector. The Otago Polytechnic School of Adventure offers courses in Outdoor Leadership, Scuba Diving and White Water Rafting that incorporate internationally recognized, as well as New Zealand, industry certification. The paper discusses a strategic move by Institutes of Technology and Polytechnics (ITPs) to integrate industry qualifications, specifically the Cisco Network Academy Programme (CNAP), into their existing programmes. It examines the challenges associated with meeting the requirements of ITP qualifications, such as those based on the New Zealand National Advisory Committee for Computing Qualifications (NACCQ) model, while maintaining compliance with the requirements of the industry qualifications. These challenges include aspects related to assessment, moderation, quality assurance, and to the resource constraints inherent within the ITP environment. The authors believe that there are many benefits to ITPs accruing from the successful implementation of industry-sponsored programmes, but also acknowledge that there are drawbacks. They believe however, that benefits significantly outweigh drawbacks. They suggest that the addition of internationally recognized industry qualifications have provided an opportune mechanism for raising ITP profile with secondary schools and industry and further, they enhance graduate employability.