As the
regulatory authority in IT education and practice in Nigeria, the Council of
Computer Professional’s (CPN) mandate is to provide a regulated and standard-driven
environment for IT education and practice in Nigeria such that socio-economic
development is engendered.
However, the Chairman of CPN’s (Registration Council of Nigeria), Vincent Asor
has condemned the quackery in Nigerian IT practice saying that the IT industry
is not properly regulated and this has created an avenue for quackery in
the industry as some people, companies and computer training colleges using
computational machinery to exercise revenue generating functions are not registered
and therefore cannot be regulated by the CPN.
“Another problem faced in the industry is that there is no clear career path
for IT professionals in this country, which will give them a sense of direction
where they belong because the CPN does not work together with other sister
agencies such as the Nigerian University Commission (NUC), National Information
Technology Development Agency (NITDA). This is on top of my agenda as the new
chairman,” he said.
Speaking about the issue of quackery, the newly elected Chairman said,
“Over the last few weeks after my election as President and Chairman of
council, I have had the opportunity of having meetings with members of staff of
the Secretariat of CPN and we are looking at how we can incorporate these
artisans and drag them into the workforce. I want them to come because we are
trying to establish a framework and design a path for them so that they can
understand that it is not good to be quacks.”
“I
plan to put sanity in the computing profession. I am going to go the whole hog
to ensure that computing standard is maintained and people do the right thing
by coming to register with the Council. We need to see a work force that is IT
oriented and managed by IT personalities. It is also very important that there is
a cybercrime law to manage cyber fraud,” he added.
Be
that as it may, Industry stakeholders and analysts disagree with the view that
quackery is a problem caused by improper regulation in the industry. IT
specialist, Tomi Walker expressed his views that quackery is really not the
main issue in the industry today saying “I can’t speak for everyone, but
quackery is not very high on the list of issues I think we have to deal with.
And this quackery is not as prevalent as most people make it out to be, but for
some reason, this is the narrative some people have chosen to focus on. I don’t
think excessive regulation would help either. We need regulators who are
experienced and out-side the box thinkers, and who will get out of the way of
innovators”.
Although Asor acknowledged that there is quackery in every business, he also
stated that the CPN “In its quest to ensure that the profession and its
practitioners are strategically positioned to add value to the society,
has made significant progress on issues such as the establishment of a standard
framework for qualitative IT education in Nigeria.
This is done in collaboration with stakeholders in the education sector through
the instrumentality of the National Information Technology Education Framework
(NITEF), joining forces with the Standards Organization of Nigeria (SON) in
ensuring that sub-standards computer products are not imported into the
country, the establishment of the Computer Professionals Examination (CPE) that
provides IT skills and knowledge that enhance IT capacity of public servants,
among others”.
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