Dismal PhilNITS Passing Rate

May 1st, 2008 --

Only 3 of the 70 examinees that took the April 6 Philippine National IT Standards (PhilNITS) Certification Exam for Fundamental Engineers (FE) in Davao City were able to pass. Adding that to the total number of passers results in a lowly 6.

Those who passed were instructors in the IT Departments of UP Mindanao and STI College. They are: Antonio Tantoy Trasporto, Jr. (STI College of Davao), Vanessa Castillo Ramoran (UP-Min) and Jan Vincent Quindoy Miro (UP-Min).

The PhilNITS certificate is recognized by the Government of Japan. Successful passers can easily acquire working visas to Japan and are said to have a bigger shot at landing a job at Japanese business process outsourcing (BPO) companies.

The next exam is scheduled on October 26. Interested examinees, with knowledge in C and Java programming languages, may register for the exam after passing the requirements:

1. 3 2×2 colored pictures.
2. Filled-up application forms.
3. Paid registration fee (P1,800)

Application forms can be downloaded through the organization’s website, or from the PhilNITS Davao Branch Office (tel. n. (082) 227-9448). Last Day of submission of applications is on October 17, 2008.

The benefits of a PhilNITS IT certificate however is still a debatable issue in the IT Community. Considering that IT jobs in Singapore are in such hot demand, some IT Programmers and Professionals feel being able to land a Japan isn’t really a joy. Some also see the bias of PhilNITS to only the Java and C programming language. Benefiting only the Java Programmers and C Programmers, considering that there are more popular programming languages out there, those IT professionals feel left out. Also felt left out are the System Administrators, Network Administrators and Database Administrators who don’t necessarily have to be adept at programming in order to perform their job.

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