Message from the President

After the one-year trial period, the Accreditation Council for Practical Abilities (ACPA) has officially launched its certification and accreditation services. I would first like to express my sincerest gratitude to everyone who has assisted us in this endeavor.

Even before the ACPA was established, industries have been under great pressure to drastically change in line with the rapid development of information science technologies, and corporations have needed to secure and train highly skilled personnel who can rise to the challenge of such changes. In accordance with this trend, universities are also now expected to provide human resources who have practical abilities and are ready to join the work force of a corporation. Industry’s desperate need for skilled personnel is becoming an increasingly important issue.

With this background, the ACPA has been examining and advocating a practical ability certification system to provide-in cooperation between the government, industry and academia-training for highly professional practical skills and solutions, thereby helping to eliminate the mismatch between workers’ skills and the tasks required of them. We have established practical ability standards based on the personnel requirements of industries, and we use these standards to assess and certify courses and examinations as well as institutions that provide them. In this way, each individual who has completed a certified course or passed a certified examination is certificated for his/her practical abilities.

ACPA has begun full-fledged activities as a certifying and accrediting institution, after the trial period. We continue to improve the system by building up expertise and reflecting the current and future personnel needs of industries.

I sincerely hope that our practical ability certification system will evolve as a Japanese major educational platform recognized throughout the world, and will contribute to nurturing personnel capable of working in the global arena.

April 1, 2006

Takashi Sakamoto
President
Accreditation Council for Practical Abilities