This is the one paragraph that addresses your area.
Question: Would your students be more attentive and hard working if they knew that companies would require a certifying exam in the classes you are teaching?
By the way, I ( personally) learn best in a classroom setting. Not all do but **I** do! I am certain that many students would still attend traditional schools for because it is the best environment for them.
^^^
By Charles Murray ( WSJ essay)
“But when so many of the players would benefit, a market opportunity exists. If a high-profile testing company such as the Educational Testing Service were to reach a strategic decision to create definitive certification tests, it could coordinate with major employers, professional groups and nontraditional universities to make its tests the gold standard. A handful of key decisions could produce a tipping effect. Imagine if Microsoft announced it would henceforth require scores on a certain battery of certification tests from all of its programming applicants. Scores on that battery would acquire instant credibility for programming job applicants throughout the industry.”
I don’t think a certifying test is a bad idea. Engineers have one to become a professional engineer. But computer science is so broad that you would need a bunch of them. For example, different ones that focuses topics like web programming, computer graphics or computer security.
For many majors, such a test would make no sense. You could have a certifying test in history, but there are very few jobs that specifically require a knowledge of history.
As I said, for computer science grads there is increasing emphasis on what you can show, not just what you know. So being able to show a program you wrote or what you did on an open source software project can be more important than your GPA. Also, most employers will have a guru test you as part of the interview. All of these are positive trends.