The Institute of Coding (IoC) has today announced its partnership with BCS, the Chartered Institute for IT, to develop an industry-relevant digital skills accreditation standard.
The new accreditation standard will help to ensure that learners have the skills that industry needs, therefore making them more employable. The standard will set a number of criteria against which the quality of university-level courses will be measured. Students will gain accreditation upon completion of an accredited course.
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Collaboration with BCS includes using its Skills Framework for the Information Age (SFIA) as the basis for the new standard. IoC partners The Open University and IBM are also working on the development of the framework.
Rachid Hourizi, director at the IoC, said: “Working with the BCS improved the quality of the new IoC accreditation standard, and will ensure that courses developed by IoC partners meet the high standards required by industry.”
We are delighted to be working with the IoC to develop a new standard that will give employers the assurance they have been asking for.
– Bill Mitchell, BCS
Bill Mitchell, director of policy at BCS, said: “Time and again employers have told us they want graduates to be able to evidence they have both the academic expertise and the professional skills that they need.
“We are delighted to be working with the IoC to develop a new standard that will give employers the assurance they have been asking for.”
The first courses designed to meet the IoC accreditation are likely to start in September 2020.
Dominic Harvey, director at CWJobs, said: “This partnership should be applauded as a positive move in bringing clarity to a sector evolving at an exponential rate. However, this kind of best practice guidance needs to be extended to training across the tech industry, so both those about to enter it from education and those established already are able to benefit from the UK’s position as a market leader in tech.”
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IoC is a government-funded consortium of educators, industry, outreach groups and professionals formed to help address the UK digital skills gap.
More information about the Institute of Coding and their partners can be found at https://instituteofcoding.org/
This article was updated with a quote from Dominic Harvey on 03/06/19
