The Kenya ICT Board and KASNEB have formed a partnership to review, identify gaps and enhance the quality of the Certificate of ICT (CICT) qualification that is managed by KASNEB and offered by various ICT institutions in Kenya. This collaboration will cover, among other areas:- - Working together towards enhancing quality ICT skills in the country - Marketing CICT to get industry buy in and endorsement at the same level as CPA. - Collaborate in conducting a baseline study/survey to determine the deficiency of ICT skills and type of skills required. - Collaborate to lobby for appropriate legal provisions for the establishment of an Institute for the CICT graduates, recognizing KASNEB as the examining and the certification body for ICT graduates. - Work to gain industry acceptance of CICT certification on same quality rating as CPA. The Kenya ICT Board wishes to convene an ICT Public Panel to develop industry and stake holder input into the review. We invite the participation of key sector players in the industry on a voluntary basis, as represented below:- - Industry players (IT products and services suppliers/manufactures including Developer Community, Skunkworks etc) - 5 representatives - Business Process Outsourcing and Call Centres - 2 representatives - Colleges representatives - 3 representatives - University representatives - 3 representatives - Student representatives – 5 - Related government ministry's representatives - 3 - Multinational Corporations - 2 TORs of the Panel. To review the state of ICT skills in Kenya with a view to identifying gaps and therefore make recommendations for addressing those gaps as seen in a global context. The Public Panel deliberations will be made out of a maximum of three meetings at the Kenya ICT Board Offices on Waiyaki way specifically on: - - Tuesday, September 9, 2008 at 10 am - Tuesday, September 16, 2008 at 10 am - Tuesday, September 23, 2008 at 10 am The recommendations will be presented to KASNEB for the review of the Certification Curriculum, on September 26, 2008 at a venue to be communicated closer to the date. This initiative is guided by the Kenya ICT Board's Strategic Objectives, mainly: - To develop and promote competitive ICT Institutions in Kenya - To develop and promote competitive ICT industries in Kenya TO PARTICIPATE To participate, kindly contact the Public Panels team on publicpanels@ict.go.ke . Please attach a brief profile of yourself and the sector that you represent. The Board will then formally invite you to participate in the Panel. While the formal invitations will be issued entirely at the discretion of the board, the broad criteria for participation is as follows:- - Demonstrated experience and knowledge in the sub-sector - Expressed willingness to serve pro bono - Demonstrated general understanding of the educational offering in the sector. We also welcome via email to publicpanels@ict.go.ke written submission on this topic, representations and opinions from the sector towards this important exercise and they will also be collated with the report.