Close Relationship between Professionalism and Education

By Tetsuro Kakeshita

Information system is an infrastructure of society since it is utilized everywhere in the real world.  There are number of information systems which are mission critical to an enterprise, government, hospital, educational institution and so on.  Such information systems strongly require ICT professionals.  For example, the Japanese government has a guideline to require ICT professionals who develop governmental information system to have high level ICT qualification.

An ICT professional is not only a person who merely earns salary or fee for ICT job but has proper professionalism to create certain value for their clients.  Professionalism is composed of many abilities such as technical knowledge and skill, communication skill, experience, ethics and leadership.

Many of the above abilities can only be obtained through experience in the real world.  But education is a strong framework to effectively learn various knowledge and skill, and to systematically understand relationship between real world experience and technical knowledge.  The ancient Chinese philosopher Confucius said, "Learning without thought is labor lost; thought without learning is perilous."  (cf. the Analects, Chapter II-15)  This implies a strong relationship between learning and experience.

College level ICT education is improving these days.  Leading computing societies including ACM and IEEE Computer Society are maintaining Computing Curricula recommendation.  The Seoul Accord (www.seoulaccord.org) was established in 2008 in order to improve computing education through mutual recognition of accredited programs at the college level.  About 20% of the computing programs are accredited by JABEE which is the Japanese member society of the Seoul Accord.  Education at these accredited programs is expected to provide proper fundamentals for ICT professionals.

Computing Curricula Recommendation
http://www.acm.org/education/education/curricula-recommendations

Seoul Accord
http://www.seoulaccord.com/accord/index.jsp

Many people working as ICT professionals did not graduate accredited computing programs.  Since ICT trend changes very fast, even a graduate of an accredited program will become obsolete without life-long learning.  These facts imply the necessity of continuing professional development (CPD).  See also the seventh habit, self-rejuvenation, of “The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People” by Stephen R. Covey.

Real world experience and systematic education are inseparable activities to properly maintain professionalism also in the field of ICT.  There are many challenges on professional development both at academia and industry.   I hope these challenges cooperate to develop global ICT professionals recognized and respected from society.

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