Certifications in the IT industry are so wimpy that ITIL Manager's looks tough. But stack it up against any undergrad or postgrad IT degree and it is just a test. Perhaps one day soon there will be plenty of ITSM-related degrees for it to compete against and it won't count for much any more.
A recent comment from Michiel talked about "ITIL is more and more part of the curriculum of universities and colleges". There is one more step for the tertiary institutes to take: from teaching awareness and general knowledge about ITIL to providing industry-recognised certification.
I'd love to see tertiary institutes emerge as accredited competitors for Expert and Advanced level training. Foundation and Practitioner are so short as to hardly count as a tertiary qualification but the higher two might - should - have enough meat to perhaps amount to one undergrad paper.
The alternative scenario is probably more likely: The existing training vendors keep their grip on governance of the qualifications and shut the tertiary institutions out. The tertiaries create their own Bachelors and Masters degrees. The industry finally realises that a year or three spent studying ITSM counts for far more than a commercial Expert or Advanced certificate and these become irrelevant or relegated to entry-level.
I can just see the university prospectus:
Batchelor of IT Operations Engineering
12 credits required
ITIL Advanced Certification: 1 first year credit.
Approved practical experience: 1 credit per year, maximum 6.
As someone who spent six years getting my own (non-IT) degree I've never quite understood the respect accorded an ITIL Manager (sorry folks). Folk say "it takes weeks of study and the exams are really hard". People who think ITIL Manager's is tough (or expensive) have either never been to university (common in IT but very rare in other engineering disciplines) or forgotten what it is like.
