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Professional certification

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A professional certification, trade certification, or professional designation (often called simply certification or qualification) is a designation earned by a person to assure that he/she is qualified to perform a job or task.

Certifications, generally, need to be renewed periodically, or may be valid for a specific period of time (e.g. the life-time of the product upon which the individual is certified). As a part of a complete renewal of an individual's certification, it is common for the individual to show evidence of continual learning — often termed continuing education — or earning continuing education units (CEU).

Certifications are very common in aviation, construction, technology industries and in other industrial sectors. In USA, the Federal Aviation Administration regulates aviator certifications. The National Organization for Competency Assurance (NOCA) is a US-based organization which helps certification bodies, primarily in health care and related fields, by providing them with information on the latest trends and issues of concern to practitioners and organizations focused on certification, obtaining licenses, and human resource development.

Many members of the Association of Test Publishers (ATP) are certification bodies.

Certifications

Aviation

Pilots are certified through theoretical and in-flight examinations. Requirements for certifications are quite equal in most countries and regulated by each National Aviation Authority. The existing certificates or pilot licenses are:

  • Private pilot (PPL)
  • Commercial pilot (CPL)
  • Airline Transport Pilot (ATPL)

Licensing in these categories require not only examinations but also a minimum of flight hours. All categories are available for Fixed Wing Aircraft (airplanes) and Rotatory Wing Aircraft (helicopters). Within each category, aviators may also obtain certifications in:

Usually, aviators also must be certified in their log books for the type and model of aircraft they are allowed to fly. Currency checks are obligatory as well as annual medical check ups. An aviator can only fly if holding:

  • A valid pilot license
  • A valid medical certificate
  • Valid certifications for the type of aircraft and type of flight.

Accountancy

Accountants are the accountancy and financial experts which are legally certified in different jurisdictions to originally worked only in public practices, selling advice and services to other individuals and businesses, but today in addition many work within private corporations, financial industry and government bodies. There are many professional bodies for accountants throughout the world, some of them are legally recognized in their jurisdictions.

There are non-statutory accountancy qualifications which are established by the industries, such as:

Logistics & Transport

Logistician is the Profession in the logistics & transport sectors, including sea, air, land and rail modes. Professional qualification for logisticians usually carry post-nominal letters. Common examples include:

  • FCILT/CMILT conferred by The Chartered Institute of Logistics and Transport (CILT),
  • EJLog/ESLog/EMLog conferred by the European Logistics Association (ELA),
  • CML/CPL conferred by the International Society of Logistics (SOLE),
  • JrLog/Log/SrLog conferred by the China Federation of Logistics & Purchasing (CFLP),
  • FHKLA/MHKLA conferred by the Hong Kong Logistics Association (HKLA),
  • PLS/CTL/DLP conferred by the American Society of Transportation & Logistics (AST&L)

Health sciences

Certified Nursing Assistants (CNA), and Certified Opticians are a couple of the many types of career health certificates below the level of a licensed practitioner that are able to give some recognition for achievement of educational requirements in their fields.
These are introductory certifications only, and recognition of higher achievements in the health sciences are usually given by an affiliated association, school, or board of practitioners. Other professional certifications include certifications such as medical licenses, Membership of the Royal College of Physicians, nursing board certification, diplomas in social work. The Commission for Certification in Geriatric Pharmacy certifies pharmacists who are knowledgeable about principles of geriatric pharmacotherapy and the provision of pharmaceutical care to the elderly. The Commission on Accreditation for Law Enforcement Agencies administers a voluntary accreditation program for law enforcement agencies.

An increasing number of lawyers are choosing to be recognized as having special knowledge and experience by becoming certified specialists in certain fields of law. According to the American Bar Association, a lawyer who is a certified specialist has been recognized by an independent professional certifying organization as having an enhanced level of skill and expertise, as well as substantial involvement in an established legal specialty. These organizations require a lawyer to demonstrate special training, experience and knowledge to ensure that the lawyer's recognition as a certified specialist is meaningful and reliable. Lawyer conduct with regard to specialty certification is regulated by the states.

Computer technology

Certification is often used in the professions of software engineering and information technology.

The most successful certification programs are oriented toward specific technologies, and are managed by the vendors of these technologies. These certification programs are tailored to the institutions that would employ people who use these technologies.

Third-party commercial organizations and vendor neutral interest groups that sponsor certifications include:

General certification of software practitioners has struggled. The ACM had a professional certification program in the early 1980s, which was discontinued due to lack of interest. Today, the IEEE is certifying software professionals, but only about 500 people have passed the exam by March 2005.

Information systems security

In an information systems environment that requires formal security accreditation, Certification refers to the comprehensive evaluation of the technical and non-technical security features of an information system.

Certification is formally defined by Krutz and Vines as:

The comprehensive evaluation of the technical and non-technical security features of an information system and the other safeguards, which are created in support of the accreditation process to establish the extent to which a particular design and implementation meets the set of specified security requirements.

Project management

Certification is of significant importance in the project management (PM) industry. Certification refers to the evaluation and recognition of the skills, knowledge, and/or competence of a practitioner in the field.

Project management certifications come in a variety of flavors:

  • Competence-based programs where an individual must provide evidence of actual, on-the-job performance.
  • Knowledge-based programs where an individual must pass an exam.
  • Experience-based programs where an individual must provide evidence of training or education in the field.

PM organisations which run certification programmes include:

Business

Teaching English to speakers of other languages (TESOL)

TESOL is a large field of employment with widely varying degrees of regulation. Most provision world-wide is through the state school system of each individual country, and as such the instructors tend to be trained primary or secondary school teachers who are native speakers of the language of their pupils, not English. Though native speakers of English have been working in non-English speaking countries in this capacity for years, it was not until the last twenty-five years or so that there was any wide-spread focus on training particularly for this field. Previously, workers in this sort of job were anyone from backpackers hoping to earn some extra travel money to well-educated professionals in other fields doing volunteer work, or retired people. These sort of people are certainly still to be found, but there are many who consider TESOL their main profession.

One of the problems facing these full time teachers is the fact that there is no international governing body for the certification or licenture of English language teachers. However, Cambridge University and its subsidiary body UCLES, are pioneers in trying to get some degree of accountability and quality control to consumers of English courses, through their CELTA and DELTA programs. Trinity College, London has roughly equivalent programs, the CertTESOL and the LTCL DipTESOL. They offer initial certificates in teaching, in which candidates are trained in language awareness and classroom techniques and given a chance to practise teaching and receive feedback on this. Both institutions have as a follow-up a professional diploma, usually taken after a year or two in the field. Although the initial certificate is available to anyone with a high school education, the diploma is meant to be a post-graduate qualification and in fact can be incorporated into a Master's degree program.

Other

Criticisms

Computer technologies

The current proliferation of IT certifications (both offered and attained)[citation needed] has led some technologists to question their value. Proprietary content that has been distributed on the Internet allows some to gain credentials without the implied depth or breadth of expertise. Certifying agencies have responded in various ways: some now incorporate hands-on elements, anti-cheating methodologies or have expanded their content. Others have expired and restructured their certificate programs, and/or raised their fees to deter abuse.

Certification programmes which take into account length of service, and demonstrated experience, via industry peer and / or employer recommendation avoid some of the issues associated with purely passing an examinations, however, certification remains a contentious issue.

See also

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