Professional certification training is a course that prepares a working professional for an industry certificate, such as a certificate in cloud computing, cybersecurity or project management. The certificate itself is awarded by a separate body, such as a cloud provider or a professional association, after the candidate passes that body's exam. The training company teaches the course. It does not award the certificate.
Why do people want these certificates? Many employers in India ask for them, especially IT services companies. A client may require that a project has a set number of certified engineers on it. A certificate also gives a recruiter a quick, standard check of one skill.
Take, for example, a logistics company in Visakhapatnam that is moving its servers to the cloud. It wants five of its system administrators certified on one cloud provider's platform within three months. The company buys five seats on a certification course at ₹25,000 a seat, which is ₹1.25 lakh in all. The course is assigned to the five employees through the company's learning management system (LMS) for companies, so that the HR team can see their progress.
The course runs over six weekends. Each Saturday and Sunday, an instructor teaches a four-hour live online class. Between classes, each administrator practises in a lab account: a real cloud account with a spending limit, in which he sets up networks and servers. Then he takes practice exams with the same number of questions and the same time limit as the real exam. The course shows which topics each person keeps getting wrong.
When an administrator is ready, he books the real exam. It is run by an exam delivery platform, either at a test centre or at home under online proctoring. The exam fee is paid separately, to the certifying body. Many certificates expire after two or three years. To keep one, the holder must pass the exam again or complete further training.
Who buys these courses? Some buyers are professionals who pay for themselves, often in monthly instalments. Others are employers, who buy seats in bulk for their staff.
The same idea is used in aviation. A pilot must be trained and tested on each type of aircraft that she flies. That training and testing take place in a flight simulator, a full copy of a cockpit.
How is it different from an online degree programme? A certificate tests one skill, takes weeks to prepare for, and must be renewed. A degree covers a whole subject, takes years, and does not expire.