Hi
I see you are from South Africa, Oracle Certification is indeed important, for starters...in order to write any oracle exam, you need to attend at least one course provided by
http://education.oracle.com , they break down their certification levels in three stages:
1. Oracle Certified Associate
2. Oracle Certified Professional
3. Oracle Certified Master
My advise to you is to first identify your path, whether you want to specialise in databases or in development
Hope this helps
smashzone