Next August, the Arab Knowledge and Management Society (AKMS) will hold the International Standards Testing Organisation (ISTO) examinations in all Arab countries and for the second time. The exams will be to grant the ISO 9000:2000 expert certificate, based on tests of understanding international and other standards.
The exams offer the opportunity to focus on understanding rather than training, and offer the chance for long-distance education, in addition to allowing professionals to obtain further qualifications as part of their ongoing professional development.
Also, the exams allow professionals to exhibit their understanding of international and other standards, as the ISTO certificate is evidence of this.
The ISTO fully adopts the international standards issued by the International Standards Organization (ISO). It also provides a service for global examination and ratification for individuals who want to display their understanding of international standards.
AKMS had signed a partnership agreement in Birmingham with the ISTO which allows AKMS to represent ISTO in the Arab region. Signing this agreement on behalf of AKMS was Engineer Khaled Abu Osbeh, Chairman of the Quality Standards Committee at AKMS and Executive Director of Abu-Ghazaleh Consulting. He is among four Arab experts who passed the exam with distinction.
It is noted that last June, 1500 experts globally sat to obtain the qualification and only half of them passed. In the first exam held in the region in November 2001 in Amman, three Arab experts from Jordan passed.