First GCHQ certified Master's courses unvieled

Posted on 04 Aug 2014 Views ( 1976 )

In March 2014, The UK’s surveillance agency declared that it was to provide official certification for master’s programmes which has a widespread base in cyber security, as per the agency.

Out of the six deemed universities that are eligible standards, four have been awarded “full certified status”. These are: Royal Holloway, University of London, Lancaster University, University of Oxford, and Edinburgh Napier University. The remaining two, University of Surrey, and Cranfield University, have been granted “provisional” certification.

All the six programmes were assessed to offer “appropriate and highest standard content”, GCHQ said.

Francis Maude, minister for the Cabinet Office, officially announced the certification during a visit to GCHQ in Gloucestershire.

“For British economy, Cyber security plays a vital role in the government’s long-term plan,” he said. “Besides its best effort, GCHQ has collaborated with other government departments, academia, and the private sector. This has not only created awareness, but also made the body stronger to defy threats.”

We hope that these accredited university courses, which are a part of a wider National Cyber Security Programme, will “help create better choices for potential scholars especially when they are looking for a highly valued qualification”.

In this regard, Deputy Director for the National Technical Authority for Information Assurance at GCHQ Chris Ensor applauded the recognized Universities, which inculcates a good understanding of cyber security,” He also encouraged the rest who didn’t make it big and suggested to reapply in the next season, which will commence at the year end, which will consists of added programs like digital forensics that concentrate on critical areas of cyber security.

The whole idea comes into the picture when a membership organization named Higher Education Statistics Agency, found that less than 1 percent of UK computer science graduates acquire jobs in cyber secure industry.

European managing director of (ISC) 2, Adrian Davis, responded on this that the time has come for computing graduates to be equipped with the skills and knowledge to compete and overcome the rapidly growing trend in cyber attacks on individual PCs, critical infrastructure, and business systems.

He added that all need to tighten their socks at sharing insights from the workplace if we expect academia to meet the requirements. Industry is often blamed of being better at criticizing academic standard rather than outlining expectation, especially in areas as dynamic as computing.