Good addition but have you ever asked yourself if the the 'great programmers' from your class got an additonal certification to become 'great', or because of interest/ passion learnt on their own using the taught concepts in class or maybe you missed some classes/ units? Am sure you didnt do all the units from your department and must have gotten an option to choose some and leave others when you started your 3rd year through to 4th year and from the look of things your project was a ............... management system/ software. Lets get back to reality. On Tue, Feb 14, 2012 at 4:28 PM, Joram Mwinamo <joram.mwinamo@gmail.com>wrote:
Just an addition, I did a Computer Science degree and still stand by what I said above. We learnt general concepts of computing, dabbled with several platforms and ushered into the world. From there we were on our own. Some became great programmers, some of us bailed. But nothing in that curriculum prepared me to be a great anything. It exposed me to all and left the rest to me
On Tue, Feb 14, 2012 at 4:16 PM, Wilson Bandi <bandson67@gmail.com> wrote:
@Joram,
For us to move forward we have to analyse what the 'big boys' are doing and do it better or localize it. What you said is not 100% correct because am sure all universities specifically for a computer science course which is more general, when approaching the end of the course, students are usually given an opportunity to specialize ie choose units that have a particular path (unless we are talking about a university outside the world).
For those who are considerate of our brothers/ sisters who wont make it to the university, then thats a good challenge to Paul, ie why not take the basics of the curriculum to high schools? FYI, the person who did the architecture and programming of one of the best opensource SMS platform never attended college and currently he consults for one of the top organization in the world.
Please lets focus on the objectives of why we need the certification/ curriculum/ course!!!
On Tue, Feb 14, 2012 at 3:50 PM, Joram Mwinamo <joram.mwinamo@gmail.com>wrote:
in my opinion, Universities are not designed to produce good programmers. they are to produce all round thinkers. So a certification program would help to attract people interested in narrow skills that can then be tested away from the noise of other courses irrelevant to the recruiter.....I still see it as a very necessary thing.
On Tue, Feb 14, 2012 at 11:17 AM, Josh Handley < josh@bridgeinternationalacademies.com> wrote:
Mike, now that I know you have a bunch of certificates my respect for your technical skills has dropped a couple of notches.
Seriously though even if Chipuka can accurately measure coding skills then it would just help weed out the job applicants who can't do loops and arrays. However, the problem isn't that I can't weed those folks out already. I have become quite good at eliminating under qualified candidates early on in the recruiting process. The real problem is that the overall number of applicants in Nairobi who are able to pass my screening tests is relatively small. Creating another certification by itself doesn't bring up the skill level of the average Kenyan software developer it just tells you which ones are not skilled and which ones are. The real focus should be on getting more developers that have the necessary skills. This can be done through better training at the university level and before (university is really too late start), on the job training etc...
Some will argue that adding the certification will help the educational programs focus on the right skills but if that is really the goal then wouldn't it be easier to just work directly with the universities and schools to improve their curriculum and teaching? My experience with big tests is that you just push to people to study for the test and they don't end up with a deep understanding of the subject matter.
I hope I don't sound overly negative on the skill level of Kenyan software engineers. We have hired a team of really top notch Kenyan developers at Bridge who are doing fantastic work and have taught me a lot. Most of them gained their skills studying at local universities and working at local software companies. I just don't think that there are enough engineers at that level to support even the current local demand let alone enough for IBM to come in and hire hundreds of them for BPO.
Josh
On 2/14/2012 9:47 AM, skunkworks-request@lists.my.**co.ke<skunkworks-request@lists.my.co.ke>wrote:
Message: 3 Date: Tue, 14 Feb 2012 09:17:54 +0300 From: Michael Pedersen<sku@kaal.dk> To:skunkworks@lists.my.co.ke Subject: Re: [Skunkworks] KICTB "Chipuka": a new software, certification program for entry level developers Message-ID:<4F39FC92.3070506@**kaal.dk <4F39FC92.3070506@kaal.dk>> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed
Hi Josh,
I agree and disagree at the same time;-)
I agree that certificates generally are being abused or does not really say anything in Kenya, in many cases you simply get a certificate for nothing. "Certificate that person X has participated in activity Y" - it tells you nothing other than that person was able to actually show up for whatever was happening. In true spirit of Generation Y (aka. the Trophy generation - everyone gets a trophy). Within my limited time in Kenya I have personally already acquired two "certificates", without having to demonstrate any understanding or skill-level.
I disagree that that Chipuka is the same thing - or at least it is not intended to be (lets see when it goes live), the significant difference here is that it requires you do demonstrate hands-on developer skills - as mentioned earlier it is of-course important to know exactly what those requirements, when evaluating any potential staff.
I have witnessed quite a few Kenyan IT-graduates, who did not understand loops and arrays i.e. the very basics of programming, how that is even possible is almost a mystery to me. My best guess is that either there are too few hands-on assignments in the university, or everything is "group-work" and that each group has 1-2 people who understands how to code, and the rest are just free-riding - anyway I don't know.
.. Michael Pedersen
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