From personal experience, building good software products that people are willing to crave, use and pay for it doesn’t require a university degree at all. Some of the world’s best programmers and developers are self taught, have little or no CS degrees, or have degrees in other backgrounds like engineering, or even microbiology. John Carmack and Tim Sweeney come to mind. It’s a paradox, getting a degree may give you access to a network of like minded programmers in the universities where you could bounce off ideas, but it doesn’t guarantee you would create great products. How many great developers\programmers do you have around with a Phd degree? Programming is something you learn by doing and not by studying courses that have nothing to do with logical thinking, and putting creativity on the drawing board.

However, still by accounts by major accounts to become a productive programmer, I think coding as much as possible and absorbing everything you can related to computers is the way to go. The more unstructured it is (contrary to what universities do to you) the more skillful you become. Even more than that, just programming something doesn’t get you there. You may code a cool product that no one is willing to use or buy. With the easy access to information, knowledge and resources, I don’t think it is difficult for anyone to start programming and developing applications.

I think CS degree in Pakistan maybe good for a government job (where they have a long list of prerequisites) However if you look job boards, it puts a smile on my face when I see job ads asking a long list of university degrees and experience without any request for evidence of previous work. In my opinion, all you need is a sample problem to code, and a one page documentation for it to be submitted by the applicant. That will tell you all what the developer\coder is made off.

And this is a very important point, about how to keep great programmers with you for longer periods. It is not as straight forward as hiring and keeping cheerleaders on a soccer team. Even cheerleaders leave for greener pastures. Hiring and keeping great programmers is a complete matter on it’s own and probably would require a complete post.

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Pakistani universities are years behind the industry and I imagine its much the same out in the west.

Personally, I am *strongly* against current educational systems where *everyone* is forced through the same time-period. So, if your child has an IQ of 210, he will still *have* to spend one whole year as will his colleague with an IQ of 65.

If you just want to be a good programmer, a university education will not help, it would do the opposite. If you want to be a good programmer, practice, submit to FOSS, show results. Honestly, how often do you see great university-level projects in Pakistan?

I’m not for the NetSol program but I’m sure as hell anyone can squeeze university education in 12 months without all the bull.

University was my biggest hurdle to education. I could have stayed home and programmed for 4 years and I would’ve been better at CS.

However, my non-CS skills are a lot to do with my Univ.

I suppose the only downside with this certification would be that “its either Netsol or no where” cause i dont think other IT companies would be willing to take Netsol certified 1-yr grads.

I’ll quote a work related example here. A client with whom we were discussing placements at different caters, refused a year back to hire experienced programmers due to high salary expectations. Instead, he hired relatively fresh but “cheap” resources whom he would teach and train himself, as he has been doing it as a profession abroad. Almost a year later, today, he calls up and says “I’m done with the training part. The minute they (programmers) are ready to deliver, they jump board for a higher salary. Get me talented resources whom I don’t have to train!”

@Hanif! It’s true a lot of CS graduate would end up picking any job which offers them a sound & steady salary. Some get drifted away due to No Counseling available.

@Hira! you are right on the dot about the middle management crises. We need to work aggressively in this sector for IT & Non-It specific roles in the industry.

In house training and grooming is the most effective tool for any organization as no one can be actually fully customized to a company needs. Interesting thing would be to look at mushroom growth of such programs all around the country. Imagine a “Become Programmer for Dummies” series or something like that!

Big corporate style companies are usually one man show or reflection of energies of a few geniuses. The rest of the people in the company are small cogs of a big machinery.

In my opinion, in case of NetSol, their strategy is good and it will work because they are looking for those “small cogs” which can be placed at appropriate places. These small cogs need to do only what they are supposed to do; requirement specifications gone through rigorous processes.

If NetSol fits in startup style, freedom seeking resources in these places, the resources will fed up very soon due to confinement (and statistics show that they do get fed up). However those getting through 12 months of squeezed training will most probably feel comfortable because most of their ideas will be imposed and will have little critical thinking.

Hence it is going to be a Win-Win situation.

PS: By no means I tend to infer that one group is better than the other. It’s all about different types of personalities and where they best fit in.