e-petition

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Again, I don't disagree. I suppose my worry is that there are some fairly large sums of money involved here - £2000 isn't unusual.

If you go to a Social Club or a Gym, you will get to see what facilities they have, maybe visit for a few weeks, then decide if you want to part with a year's subscription of maybe a few hundred pounds.

TPs are very different. You only get the opinion of others, which is mixed at the best of times. You get a sales spiel designed to part you from your money with no cooling-off because you invited them to your home. You don't get to try before you buy without it costing extra (It's £2500 for A+ or £3000 for A+ and N+, Sir...). You get confusing course structures... No wonder some people end up feeling they have been conned when things go wrong. The sinister threat is that these things are sold to people as a way to an exciting new career, when the reality may be very different...

 

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http://www.trainingpressreleases.com/newsstory.asp?NewsID=2833

I will reserve comment...

Just read part of the ODLQC - very interesting reading. Thanks for that...

 

Interesting article - there was something similar in the last computer weekly.

But of course, who watches the watchers?

Who regulates the IITT?

 

Only problem with that statement is... I'm not a forum moderator.

Plus, it's proooooobably not a good idea to imply that the mods here rule with an iron fist. They've always been, and will continue to be, quite fair.

Fora-ums such as these are not the only current source for getting this information. Any search engine will bring up tons of data on training centers and opinions about training centers.

I think I've beat the other points to death already, so I'll refrain from addressing them.

 

They're not that different. Do you think you don't get a sales spiel or high-pressure tactics with a social club or gym? Of course you do. And can you not take a single course from a training center to give it a try before investing thousands? Sure you can.

Training centers here in the US don't come to your home to sell you a spiel... here, we actually GO to the training center to check it out. But perhaps you're not allowed to do that, there. If that's the case... that totally sucks, mate.

 

Absolutely - you can take a single course, but it becomes prohibitively expensive to do it that way. I know at least one TP (and I won't name them) sells heavily-discounted courses on the back of other courses. Buy a single course with a couple of certificates at the end of it, and it costs maybe £2000. Buy another and it costs maybe £3000. Buy a suite of courses (which is what I did - please don't go there - there isn't a morning I don't wake up kicking myself) with a whole bunch of certificates at the end, providing you pass, which is guaranteed ( ) and it is £4500 or thereabouts... Buy the whole lot seperately and it could cost you an extra £4000 on top of that... Sounds crazy, doesn't it?

The training centre is likely to be some way away and a small part of the course - maybe only a few days of in-centre time is allocated in the course price. I guess someone could go and check it out first, but I'm not sure how much it would help them...

Maybe things are different in the USA?

 

I have to finally weigh in on this thread,

I have to ask, what made you pay £4500 for 'multiple certifications and courses' I've never once done that, to be blunt, I think its totally stupid

I did pay for my first MCSE (2k when I was 14, no small chunk of change) but I knew what it entailed, I was prepared to see it through, and I did
how on earth anyone can justify buying a bunch of courses totally separate to each other and at levels indicative of going through nursery school all the way to post graduate courses in a year I don't know!

Why would anyone want to try and do A+, N+, Sec+, MCSE et all as part of the same package? this is a ridiculous notion and one that highlights the deficiencies in the IT industry as a whole
anyone early enough in their career to be doing A+ does NOT need to try and tackle an MCSE a few months later

in direct response, should there be some regulation in place? absolutely not, just complain more, and do your homework,
MCTs have strict rules of conduct, you can complain about them to the vendor
Cisco instructors are few and far between, make sure you go to a provider that is allowed to use them and not just someone who reads a CCNA book from memory,
make sure official course ware is provided in original format, if it's not, chances are its not a legit outfit and quality is hard to predict

in peoples rush to get a 'good deal' or a 'bargin' they lose their common sense and sign up to any old crap that has a good price, and they do indeed pay the price
tough luck I say
Go support your local accredited training provider and spend a bit more money


Now for the mod voice
I'd like to see the tones lowered in this thread, I don't want it to get out of hand to the point that PMs are sent and posts are pulled, we are a very open and mature community and encourage debate, but blatant flaming will not be tolerated, please bear that in mind.

 

Phoenix - I thought we'd done quite a good job of 'lowering the tones' in this thread. Given where it has been. Then you called me stupid - when clearly, I am not.

Some moderation from your responses might be more befitting of a moderator.

Any comment to that?

EDIT: 2K when you were 14 for an MCSE... Allow for a bit of inflation over the last few years since then, 11 years of it, you're looking at an equivalent of (say) 2.5K, 3K. You got a good deal, but not a brilliant one... You could so easily have ended up where I am.

 

I will be watching this post closely. Its a good idea. Lets hope it becomes mandatory.

 

Unfortunately, I and the other mods do not fully agree with your assessment.
I also called the act of signing up to a consolidated group of courses without appropriate research stupid, that doesn't make you stupid, it simply makes the act itself stupid

Indeed, and it was, I am however allowed to have a personal opinion to boot, you will find both are contained in my above post

Easily ended up where you are? I think not, I did my homework, knew what I was getting myself in to, and knew what I was capable of

In every post you have made in this thread you have tried to thwart every post made by the senior members of this community who have disagreed with you, this doesn't lead me to believe very highly of your experience or reasoning in this matter, and it also highlights you lack of reasoning with those who are possibly more experienced in this area than you

----

I'll once again say in a moderator capacity, flaming and trolling will not be tolerated here, so can everyone please continue this debate as a debate, not as an argument

 

OK - Maybe I should back down here. But no...

Signing up to a consolidated group of courses was not my finest hour. My mistake (and I have said it so many times, I am almost tired of it myself) was to believe what I was told by the salesman from the more expensive accredited training organisation I eventually chose. I accept your statement that you described the act as stupid, rather than me, but given that a previous moderator had said that we should be careful that what we say could not be misconstrued as a personal attack...

By implication, you accuse me of failing to do my homework, not knowing what I was getting into, and not knowing what I am capable of. The possibility that I did all of the above, still got stung, and am a victim here, does not enter your mind...

If by 'thwart' you mean disagree, then yes, I am guilty of disagreeing with some people. And some of them have been moderators. Is this not allowed?

Assuming the plug doesn't get pulled on this...

The problem with taking the approach that regulation is unnecessary, and that complaining after the fact is more appropriate, is that it isn't an especially positive way of dealing with things. The training industry should be concerned that left unregulated, there is too much space for rogue companies to get in, and that the bad press they generate damages the field for everyone. I suspect they agree with me - I believe the link to Training Press Releases shows their concern. Even the industry itself believes a degree of regulation is necessary to save it from the rogues. How can it be such a sin to want regulation?

 

It's not just you mate.

Try not to get too defensive.
The more you push in things like this, the more people push back.

You have to try to adopt a balanced approach, which your last post came close to doing.

Yes, there may be something lacking in terms of industry regulation - BUT, this probably wouldn't have prevented you making the mistake you made.

Then you have to accept that you made a poor decision, either the choice of course or the TP.

Learn from your experience, and move on.

People here will support you, as long as you don't fight them.

 

I didn't say you should buy everything separately... but you should buy a single course to try the school out first... THEN buy a bundled package if you like it, and everything checks out.

 

No, JonnyMX, it may not have stopped me from making the mistake, but I suspect that some 'real' information from the outset might have made a difference. I honestly don't believe, given my experience of the training methods employed by this particular company and despite their accreditation, that their results can be that good. Maybe, if this is the case, a bit of early warning about it would have helped. But it isn't possible to get the to the truth. All we have to rely on is opinion. And the opinion is really mixed up, even at certforums. My homework simply didn't help me.

I didn't come here looking for a fight. I have had some support, from some individuals, and I am grateful for it. But from where I stand, it feels like a whole bunch of people have got pretty aggressive with me pretty early on, because (I assume) I disagree with them about some things, and I haven't backed down unless I can see my error.

BosonMichael - Yes, I suppose things could have panned out like that. But it is difficult when you (wrongly) believe that the training on offer is good, and that you are saving yourself a considerable additional expense by just booking up in advance for the courses you know you will need to do at some point anyway... I know you disagree, but I still think a regulatory framework might prevent companies from using these sort of selling tactics on gullible types like myself

 

I must admit that this thread confuses me. It seems that the people who are dead set against any kind of regulation, (because it could harm the good TP's) never actually tell people that they should use one.

I have never seen a post that says "don't do self study, use a TP instead".

This makes me think about the effect that this advice has on TP's. I wonder if "we" have actually put any of these TP's out of business. I somehow think that we haven't helped them very much

 

I'm not dead set against regulation... I'm against the specific concept of requiring test centers to post pass rates to compare TPs because pass rates are absolutely not an indicator of whether a TP is good or bad, legal or crooked.

 

In a perfect world, if TP's didn't use brain dumps and other underhand methods, then Could we still say that pass rate stats would not be an indicator??
In that case i think they would probably be useful.

But of course, we don't live in that world, and I am prepared to take on your point about the methods used by some TP's

So, then the problem becomes one of policing how the TP's achieve high pass rates (if stats are also published). I wont pretend to know how this would be done, but surely there must be a way.

I think I agree with you that stats ,in isolation, would not achieve the required result.

What about stats on how many students of a particular TP managed to find work. I say this because I presume that you need to have the required knowledge in a field, to be successful in an Interview, and that passing an exam the braindump way will not actually give you this knowledge.

I'm sure that we could come up with valid ways of identifying the bad TP's.

My problem with TP's is not actually one of exam results. It is more to do with the quality of the tutors and materials. My TP course material is pretty bad (errors everywhere), and a hierarchical tutor structure were if you disagree with a tutors response for long enough, they will refer it to somebody who actually knows his/her stuff).

At this moment I cant think of any quantitative way that this could me monitored, any responses gained from students themselves are qualitative and fairly unsafe.

I think that it has already been said, but I would by happy to pay more for a TP's service if I could be convinced of its quality. So maybe that "little extra" could go toward setting up some kind of governing body, to which TP's had to subscribe.

 

I'm not 'against' regulation either.
However, as BM says, I'm against the proposed form of regulation suggested in this thread (the publishing of stats alone) and I'm against the manner in which it has been presented - one man's beef because he got his fingers burned.

No offence to Shambles, and I have enjoyed this thread - it's been an interesting debate.

If the government decides that there is a need to regulate TPs (and landscape garders, rag and bone men or whatever) then fine. I'm sure that the vast majority of TPs - good and bad - will fit into the mould and go on.

I do think though that to a certain extent we live in a world gone mad. You practically have to carry out a risk assessment before cutting your own lawn.

So there are some things, like selecting a service such as a TP, which an average person should be able to handle without big brother watching over them.

Do we need more regulation? Is it to protect us from harm or to stop us making silly mistakes?

 

No offence taken, honestly - but two things to consider. The first is that I probably wouldn't be raising it as an issue unless I had had that experience to set me off in this particular direction. People raise all sorts of issues in these forums and they are pretty much always as the result of some sort of event or experience they have had. I'm no different in this respect.

The second point is that I can't help being the person who had that experience. I wasn't the person to raise the issue of my personal experience in all of this - it wasn't my intention to do so either because I didn't want it to be the focus of the discussion. But once someone else mentioned it, I couldn't really do anything other than deal with it head-on. As a result, things have got quite confused. You know, if I had hopped in through a proxy, signed up under another name , and then raised the issue, I suspect the conversation would have been very different. No-one would have been accusing me of doing this because things went wrong between me and my TP. BUT THAT WOULD BE WRONG

I started a petition. I have a responsibility to publicise it and try to talk people round to signing, if possible.

I'm willing to listen. Some of you have said you are not against regulation - you simply question the value of the route I am suggesting. If the method I have suggested is not the right thing way to go, then how might things be done? StuPeas has made a couple of suggestions...

 

Again.. In a perfect world, this is absolutely correct and I'm sure that no one will disagree.

But you appear to be missing the point. The underlying question is...Without any evidence (quantitative) of the quality of the TP, then even the "above average" person has absolutely NO WAY of knowing what is round the corner.

Nobody WANTS an Orwellian state, but some situations DO need to be monitored. In the situation as it is at the moment, we cannot put a bad choice down to a "mistake", A better description would be "bad luck" (i.e. to make a "mistake" you need to have weighed up all the information, and THEN make your choice!!. If you don't have any information, then your decision is purely "hit and miss")