More Chinese enhancing their future with international qualifications

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 ◆ More Chinese enhancing their future with international qualifications

Yang Jingsong, a 27-year-old white-collar worker in Beijing, recently gave up a well-paid job in order to prepare for tests of the London Chamber of Commerce and Industry (LCCI).

"My long-term goal is to become an international business professional, and the LCCI's qualification is an internationally accepted credential that leads to better jobs," she said.

In fact, a growing number of white-collar workers in Beijing have come to believe that an international qualification will lead to promotion, pay raises and more challenges in their work.

Following China's accession into the World Trade Organization and its adoption of internationally accepted standards in many professions, flocks of international training organizations have started to promote their qualification programs and opened up testing centers in the world's most populous nation.

Though no official figure is available to date as to how many international qualification programs have actually entered China, many white-collar workers and even some college students have begun to consider the wide variety of exams now available to them.

Almost overnight, qualification tests of the World Business Strategist Association (WBSA), the Health Insurance Association of America (HIAA), the Project Management Institute (PMI), the Society of Actuaries (SOA), the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants (ACCA) and the Certified General Accountants (CGA) Association of Canada have become as popular as much earlier entrants such as the Test of English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL)and the Graduate Record Exam (GRE). Some newcomers have received a warm welcome. The certification programs offered by Cambridge's Business Language Testing Service (BULATS) and the US-based Commission on Graduates of Foreign Nursing Schools (CGFNS) have drawn crowds of people from all walks of life since they debuted merely two months ago.

An official in charge of Beijing's job market has attributed the increasing popularity of international qualification tests to their wide acceptance by employers, particularly executives at foreign-funded firms in China.

A recent survey conducted on China's information industry shows that a Novell qualification or a Microsoft Certified System Engineer (MCSE) certificate could bring a 30 to 50 percent pay rise.

Holders of a Cisco qualification or a Microsoft Certified Solution Developer (MCSD), on the other hand, could even expect pay rises up to 60 percent, it shows.

These benefits, however, come at a cost -- a cost of much time, money and huge efforts.

Training for an MCSE, for example, costs up to 25,000 yuan (3,012 US dollars) and an applicant has to pay an extra 230 yuan (28 US dollars) for each of the seven required tests. The total amount is nearly equivalent to the average annual income of an engineer.

The Cisco Certified Networking Engineer program offered by the US network giant, on the other hand, costs 40,000 yuan (4,820 US dollars) in training and 9,000 yuan (1,084 US dollars) for all its exams.

Money, however, is not the only necessity, as work experience in related fields is always a prerequisite for anyone who wishes to sit for such tests -- and a strong advantage that would qualify them for senior positions later on.