ISACA, leading global IT professional association and learning organization with presence in 188 countries and 220 chapters worldwide, today announced plans to increase focus and expand its current offerings and programmes in India. ISACA, that has 12 chapters across India at present, with more than 8,500 members, many of them senior and experienced IT professionals from across domains and leading IT majors, will also strengthen its programmes and certifications for early stage, new professionals, young IT graduates and those looking to shift to IT industry or reskill for faster growth in career.

As a first step towards this initiative, ISACA today announced in India and globally, the launch of the new Information Technology Certified Associate (ITCA) certification. A dynamic addition to ISACA’s globally recognized credentials, ITCA offers students, recent graduates, those new to the IT profession or professionals seeking a career change, with a flexible, hybrid format consisting of both knowledge-based learning and performance-based learning, through live labs in a virtual environment. The certification can be achieved at one’s own pace, by completing five modular certificates that focus on different domain areas in IT—which can also be earned separately or stacked in different ways:
• Computing Fundamentals
• Networks and Infrastructure Fundamentals
• Cybersecurity Fundamentals
• Software Development Fundamentals
• Data Science Fundamentals

With the ITCA certification, upcoming IT professionals can prepare themselves for in-demand jobs like computer systems administrator, technical support specialist, database administrator, systems engineer, applications developer, front-end web developer, and quality assurance analyst— in a flexible format that can fit into existing college and work schedules. The certification can also serve more experienced audit, security or governance professionals looking to enhance their understanding of foundational IT concepts.

Explaining the rationale for the certification, David Samuelson, CEO, ISACA, says, “A key part of ISACA’s commitment to providing tools for lifelong learning is supporting professionals at every stage of their career journey, including in that critical period at the very beginning—whether they are new graduates or professionals seeking to make a career change to IT. We are proud to be able to serve a new generation of IT professionals and thought leaders, including those transitioning their careers due to the pandemic, by helping them differentiate and elevate themselves as they enter the job market and start their careers.”

According to NASSCOM, the Indian IT industry is expected to close FY21 with over 1,38,000 net hires, taking the employee base to 4.47 million. The Indian IT sector continued to gain traction despite the pandemic, growing at 2.3 percent year-on-year on the back of rapid acceleration in digital transformation and tech adoption.

The new ITCA certification joins an established set of ISACA credentials that have been part of the professional community’s learning journey for years, including Certified Information Systems Auditor (CISA), Certified Information Security Manager (CISM), Certified in Risk and Information Systems Control (CRISC), Certified in the Governance of Enterprise IT (CGEIT), CSX Cybersecurity Practitioner Certification (CSX-P) and Certified Data Privacy Solutions Engineer (CDPSE).

For more information about ITCA, visit www.isaca.org/credentialing/itca. More detail about ISACA’s other credentials can be found at www.isaca.org/credentialing.