Trans-Tasman agreement on ICT qualifications looms

Kiwi ICT qualifications are on the road to international acceptance

As part of a new agreement between the computer societies in Australia and New Zealand, a joint body will be set up to accredit “computer and IT-related degrees”, giving them equal status in both countries as meeting appropriate professional standards.

“Most if not all countries New Zealand would compare [itself] to already have degree accreditation by the ICT professional body, and have for a number of years,” says NZCS CEO Paul Matthews. “For instance, in Australia the Australian Computer Society (ACS) has been accrediting degrees for more than 20 years, while the BCS in the UK has been doing it even longer. In Australia every university participates, and there is a high participation rate in most other countries,” he says.

The move also brings the computing profession into line with other professions, such as accounting, architecture and engineering, where Australian and New Zealand professional bodies mutually recognise the status of each others’ degrees in the relevant disciplines.

New Zealand degrees are generally of a very high standard, Matthews says, in part because of stringent internal and external quality assurance (QA) processes. “However none of these links to professional accreditation, and very importantly, none of them links to accreditation or QA on an independent international basis,” he says.

Australia, Canada, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Japan, Korea, the UK and the US have come together in an agreement called the Seoul Accord, cross-recognising academic ICT programmes in each country and establishing an international professional standard for ICT degrees.

Several other countries are in various stages of adopting the accord. Having New Zealand’s accreditation link to Australia would put us on the road towards increasing international recognition. “New Zealand needs to be in there or we risk our ICT-related degrees not having the same level of recognition or standing on the international stage as most of our comparable countries, which could have significant consequences for New Zealand,” Matthews says.

Piggy-backing on Australia means if the other Seoul Accord nations accept the joint arrangement, New Zealand could have its qualifications recognised by those countries two or three years sooner, than if it had built an accreditation system from scratch and put it forward for recognition, he says.

The joint body, the Australia/New Zealand ICT Accreditation Board (ANZIAB) will oversee degree accreditation in both countries, and own the standard and process documentation used.

The ANZIAB will consist of four ACS appointees (two academics and two industry representatives) and three appointees by NZCS (two academics and one industry representative) plus one staff member from each body by right of their office.

As well, the NZCS has agreed to act as the sole local agent for an ACS distance learning programme, the Computer Professional Education Program (CPeP) and to help promote the programme in Pacific Islands territories. NZCS will recruit students in New Zealand and in due course find tutors to be trained in Australia to deliver CPeP courses.

The agreement as currently formulated will prohibit NZCS from offering its own “identical or substantially similar programme” for two years after the agreement is finalised.

There was “considerable discussion” between the parties before an acceptable form of this clause was agreed, Matthews says. “Original drafts had a longer term and a more broad statement; we agreed on ‘identical or substantially similar programme’ as being reasonable to protect them from us just copying their programme.

“In future, if we did want to implement something ourselves we believe this would still enable us to do so, as long as we didn’t just copy their programme."

“If we did want to create our own education programme, chances are it wouldn’t be “identical or substantially similar” to theirs,” he says.

The Memorandum of Understanding between the two societies also encompasses mutual recognition of their professional qualifications; Australia’s Certified Professional (CP) and New Zealand’s Information Technology Certified Professional (ITCP).

Again, the aim is eventual broad-ranging international recognition; the CP program has already been accredited by the International Professional Practice Partnership and NZCS intends to accredit ITCP under the partnership within 12 to 18 months of the finalising of the trans-Tasman agreement.