COMPTIA Continuing Education Program

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I have been reading the FAQ in regards to the new CE program on the COMPTIA website. It sounds to me a way for us to spend more money. If anyone certified prior to 2011, our certifications are no longer active. According to the FAQ for those whom certified for life and wish to participate in the CE program,

"If you do not enroll in continuing education on or before December 31, 2012, or do not meet your CE program
requirements on or before your CE program expiration date, you will be required to retake and pass the current
exam(s) in order to be certified and be allowed to participate in the CE program again. You will retain any
previous “certified for life” status."

The key phrase "in order to be certified" makes it sound like I am not currently certified (at the present). If they wanted to do this certification renewal thing, they should done this in the 1990's when they first did the certification program. Doing it at a time where the economy is bad and demands are high makes it appear as though it helps COMPTIA make money. Although Comptia states that they don't benefit it, and I do understand that they have to pay fees for administrating testing, I think it's a rouge.

For anyone certified for life, anyone will look at that and know that you are not currently certified. In that case, that will mean that you are not up to date with the current technologies. And why do we have to spend money to prove what we know or can do? I like it better when they didn't have this new policy.

And for those whom are certified after 2011, it does not make those individuals less credible than the ones whom certified prior to 2011. This case also goes vice versa. My apologies for my poor English. I may have misinterpretations when I am reading.

 

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In order to be certified means in order to be CE certified. They've changed the exam designation by adding a 'ce' on the end to indicate "continuing education".
In short, if you don't participate in the CE program and you don't retake an exam, you will still be CompTIA A+ certified, but you will not be CompTIA A+ce certified.


EDIT: I've just had a good look at the CE criteria. Laughable. You get credits for: attending seminars, teaching, attending formal courses, working for CompTIA putting together gramatically-challenged questions and various other things 1st/2nd line techs who self-study don't do on a regular basis.
I think my favourite is that a CCNA only buys you the A+ and Net+ recertification. You need CCNA Sec if you want all three.

 

I was going to post about this today its all very confusing, I passed my A+ Last week, now it says if i pass a N+ or Sec+ that would count towards my CE.
So if i take a N+ next week does that extend my A+ for 3 years??? Or not?
Its not very clear i feel and its all a bit of a shambles!

 

I failed my N+ just before the end of 2010 (and couldn't get another appointment without a 200 mile round trip). I'm holding back booking a re-test untill these requirements are better explained, like you I read the comptia website, and get the impresion that under the CE system you have to haggle and blag your way into keeping your certificates if you don't want to pay out £180+ per exam/cert every 3 years.

Personally I prefer the Microsoft way, did you pass the exam? yes? then you know the subject matter. Your cert remains valid untill the product you are certified in, is wiped from the face of the earth. I wonder how many windows 3.1 MCPs would be listed on CVs if the certification exisited back then.

Why cant comptia just have A+(2009), A+(2010), A+(2011), etc.. and let employers decide how out of date your skills are?

 

That's the way CompTIA had been doing it. CompTIA had to add the Continuing Education requirements to fulfill several ISO and DoD compliance requirements.

 

I'm no business major, but theres nothing in "not for profit" that mandates, "not for expansion" or "not for bonues/payrises"...

Not for profits are allowed to make profits, just they must be re-invested, there are no dividend paying shares.

There appears to be reasonable evidence that A+ certification at least had ANSI/ISO compliance already, so unless they moved the goalposts I'd say that its mainly a US DoD money grab scheme.