Thank you for the quick feedback. I will try to find the PyCon presentation then :) I think, the "keeping the questions secure and secret" may be solved:

- there are questions which are kind of definitions and they are not secret (if you learn the right answer you learn the core syntax, etc.);

- there are exercises like questions which can be dynamically generated and verified; so, you can't cheat the answer.

I'm very curious what other issues you consider.

Gabor

On Wed, May 4, 2022, at 4:18 PM, Reuven M. Lerner wrote:

There was a great talk given at PyCon 2019's education summit about

certification. (I'm sorry that I don't remember who gave it, because it

was excellent, and laid out the issues very clearly.) It really opened

my eyes to the complexity and difficulty of creating a good

certification program -- but also the importance of having one run by

the community, rather than companies.

I would be happy to chat with other people about setting up some sort of

PSF-sponsored Python certification program, which would benefit everyone

in the community. But it won't be easy or a short-term project, and

there are many issues to deal with, including the need for keeping the

questions secure and secret, while keeping it an open-source project.

Reuven

Carl Karsten wrote on 04/05/2022 10:10:

+1

On Wed, May 4, 2022 at 8:59 AM <gabor.guta@proinbox.com> wrote:

I have checked out the the Python certification programs and I think it would be interesting to create something more "official" and more open/cheaper. I have found a Polish company which calls itself as Python-Institute (which is a bit misleading name in my opinion as it suggest that it is officially related to some organization of the Python community) and sells tests/certs from approx. fifty to several hundred EUR depending on the level. I have tried the entry level and for me it was disappointing from the perspective of the quality of the questions. I haven't tried Microsoft's certification yet.

I think it would be a very viable option to create a certification program which is officially supported by the PSF and provide some reasonable pricing (i.e. free if someone just want do a self assessment and a reasonable price if someone want to take the test in a controlled environment). The scope could be the core language elements.

Let me know what you think about the usefulness of the idea.

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