The Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation (MOSTI) held an Open Day today to engage the public on the establishment of the proposed Board of Computing Professionals Malaysia (BCPM). The objectives of the open day were to:
(i) Inform the public on the establishment of the proposed BCPM;
(ii) Allow public viewing of the Draft Computing Professionals Bill; and
(iii) Provide a venue for feedbacks and opinions on the draft of the Computing Professionals Bill.
The impetus for the establishment of the proposed BCPM was initiated from the National ICT Human Resources Task Force that prepared the ICT Human Capital Development (HDC) Framework. It has proposed among others the formation of a national ICT professional body and promotion of professional development practitioners as well as rebranding and promotion of ICT as a career of choice. This proposal was then brought to the attention of the Cabinet Committee in March 2011, and it was mandated that MOSTI be tasked to facilitate the establishment of the proposed BCPM. The call for recognition of the ICT professionals in the nation was voiced by the industry and academia, in view of the need to elevate the current status of ICT profession to that of international standard.
Some of the pertinent concerns put forward during the Open Day are:
(i) the qualifications of those who wish to be registered with the Board;
(ii) the ambiguous definition of sectors identified under the Critical National Information Infrastructure (CNII);
(iii) poor representation of the ICT community in coming up with the proposed bill;
(iv) the language and wording of the proposed Bill is very restrictive;
(v) the power bestowed on the Minister in the bill;
(vi) poor public engagement via the Net; and
(vii) penalties which are considered as criminal offence.
As the draft is still a work-in-progress and as a follow-through to the Open Day, MOSTI will continue to be the main driver of this draft bill by facilitating, engaging all interested parties and gather all feedbacks from the community via emails sent to \n // –> [email protected] This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it by 15 January, 2012. The session was designed that way for the public to interact with the industry since the proposed BCPM is still at its consultative stage and thus decision on its establishment will depend on whether the industry wants it or not. All feedbacks will be reviewed, considered and deliberated upon to substantiate the establishment of the proposed BCPM and share with the public at a later stage. Apart from that, MOSTI, with the recommendation of the key stakeholders will also identify other representatives, who were present during the Open Day to be included in future discussions to come up with the proposed BCPM. The proposed bill will only proceed to the next stage after consultation and reconciliation with all interested parties.
Prior to the Open Day, the proposed bill has been uploaded in MOSTI’s portal for public viewing. The Open Day was conducted in an open forum where the public forwarded their concerns and queries to a panel of key stakeholders who were involved in preparing the initial draft of the BCPM bill via Q&A sessions. Suggestions/feedbacks forms were also used to receive queries and concerns. The panel includes representatives from the National ICT Deans Council (MADICT), National Professors Council, Association of the Computer and Multimedia Industry Malaysia (PIKOM), Malaysian National Computer Confederation (MNCC) and National Professors Council (ICT Cluster).