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Comment by xnorswap | Hacker News Reader

This isn't just about AI, the exams were only moved to remote for COVID.

There will be a lot of COVID-era qualifications that are treated with a hint of suspicion in the future.

Take a look at A-level scores: https://schoolsweek.co.uk/a-level-results-2024-future-exams-...

( direct link to graph: https://schoolsweek.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/Overall... )

It's unfortunate for those affected either way. It was a difficult time when drastic measures needed to be taken at short notice.

It's right to go back to in-person testing if there is a problem keeping remote exams fair.

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I wonder why it wasn't done earlier as the pandemic has been over for a while.

I remember reading something when I was studying for AWS certs (might’ve been from AWS itself): the goal of the certifying bodies is to make as much money as possible. For this to happen, the exam can’t be so hard that nobody takes it, but it can’t be so easy that everyone takes it and it loses its value.

Organizations have been coasting on their pre-Covid reputations for a while. Now it’s time for them to adjust the slider the other way.

everyone takes it and it loses its value

I don't know about this part. Years ago, my friend in college was taking all kinds of Microsoft certification exams and passing them with near perfect score. Thing is, he had no clue about most of the topics he passed, he had never worked with those tech. He just spent a bunch of time collecting questions (which wasn't that hard to find) and memorizing the answers. They could've made it difficult enough so just rote memorization wouldn't work, but they didn't (don't know if it has changed now).

Companies had long figured out these certifications are just easy money. It is hard to resist the temptation to just charge hundreds of dollars for a test and add it as a "profit center"

Yes - and I've never met anyone in the last 20+ years that actually treats those certifications as worth more than the paper they're printed on.

They might still be able to scam folks into taking the test, but the test itself has essentially no meaningful value in industry.

Personally - I see "Agile certifications" as the same thing but from the last decade.

The tech industry, where just about everyone is capable of cleaving off aspects of a problem and reasoning whether those aspects apply to the general case do not just fail to apply serious scrutiny to certification and licensing schemes in other fields but tend to actively go out on limbs to defend them.

I don't know what that says but it sure says something.

>Organizations have been coasting on their pre-21st century reputations for a while. Now it’s time for them to adjust the slider the other way.

Fixed that for you.

Also, they'll try and buy laws that force people to deal with them. Only if that doesn't work will they try and get their own house in order.

> the pandemic has been over for a while

The pandemic isn't actually over, at least, not for disabled people.

I don't want to sound heartless, especially as I'm in the high-risk category myself, but I think it's important to recognise that while COVID hasn't gone away, it is no longer a pandemic.

It is now endemic instead, and needs to be managed as such.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Endemic_COVID-19

It is absolutely over by any sane definition of “pandemic”. Covid persists, but the pandemic is over.

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