Broadening career options

The K-to-12 Law, the Higher Education Reform Agenda, and Tesda’s vigorous drive to heighten the middle-level technical skills of the workforce all give context to the reform thrust of education stakeholders to bring education and industry closer than ever before.

The IT & Business Process Association of the Philippines (Ibpap) has been aggressively advocating active partnerships among its member-companies and the colleges and universities from which they hire as a means to significantly broaden the career potential of more than a million young men and women graduating from or about to exit the education system every year.

Initially, Ibpap made significant headway by working closely with Tesda to improve the level competencies of job applicants. A short time later, Ibpap was engaged by the Commission on Higher Education to be its technical resource and implementing arm for the latter’s P125-million Growth Area Project for the Information Technology & Business Process Management (IT-BPM) sector. This major undertaking involves 17 state universities and colleges (SUCs) nationwide and envisions the emergence and sustained replenishment of a globally competent graduate pool through a curricular specialization track called the Service Management Program (SMP) and intensive computer-assisted English language fluency modules: the Basic English Skills Training (BEST) and Advanced English Proficiency Training (AdEPT).

At this writing, 606 business administration and IT faculty from 16 SUCs have been trained to teach systems thinking, service culture, and business process management fundamentals, while 622 faculty members have completed either BEST or AdEPT modules.

As many as 316 computer science students from Laguna State Polytechnic University, 250 business administration students from Negros Oriental State University, and 120 more from Polytechnic University of the Philippines are getting real-world workplace experience through 600 hours of internship with well-known IT-BPM companies like Genpact, EGS, SPI Global, Qualfon, Teletech, APL, Startek, Tsukiden, Sutherland, Ingram Micro, Sykes, Cognizant, Sitel, Telus, Accenture and Aegis (recently acquired by Teleperformance).

Just last month, Cavite State University, in partnership with Infosys, opened its own SMP Language Lab, the first of its kind in the country today. Soon, Bulacan State University supported by Accenture will follow suit. These SMP Language Labs have the look and feel of a typical IT-BPM company workspace and have 20 or more computers installed with BEST and AdEPT software.

Next year, Ibpap anticipates around 2,000 more interns from seven or more SUCs. Barring unforeseen circumstances, most if not all of the 17 beneficiary SUCs should be in the final stages of opening their own SMP Language Labs.

It is evident that the formation of mutually supportive partnerships between IT-BPM companies and higher-education institutions is crucial to the IT-BPM Growth Area Project’s success and sustainability. But getting two disparate entities like an IT-BPM company and a higher-education institution to forge a workable partnership is easier said than done.

In her presentation at the 37th Annual Convention of the Career Development Association of the Philippines, Kit D. Bonnet of De La Salle University explained that the higher-education institutions’ raison d’etre revolves around the development of academic knowledge, research skills and social engagement through the promotion of positive social and civic values.

This view sharply contrasts with that of the 21st-century global IT-BPM Company, which continuously stimulates growth by relentlessly seeking out and acquiring the best and brightest in the talent pool. Bonnet also emphasized that because they are technology- and metrics-driven, IT-BPM companies make decisions and implement programs and projects at breathtaking speeds, with far-reaching consequences.

Bonnet strongly suggested that higher-education institutions respond to partnership initiatives with what she called the “3 Is” (inform, include, inspire) and the “3 Cs” (courage, curricular change, commitment). She said universities must imbue nascent partnerships with industry with realistic expectations, and that our belief in the education institution’s mission as a transformative influence for knowledge and values must be resonant. Universities must show industry that they have the courage and flexibility to effect curricular change where necessary, she added.

In his introduction to the Unesco report titled “Learning: The Treasure Within,” presented to the International Commission on Education for the 21st Century, Jacques Delors writes: “The education system is all too often blamed for unemployment. This is only partly true; above all, it should not obscure the other political, economic and social prerequisites for achieving full employment or enabling the economies of underdeveloped countries to take off. Valid responses to the problems of mismatch between supply and demand on the labour market can come from a more flexible system that allows greater curricular diversity and builds bridges between different types of education, or between working life and further training. Such flexibility would also help to reduce school failure and the tremendous wastage of human potential resulting from it.”

Delors adds: “This has led us, within the terms of reference of the report, to rethink and update the concept of lifelong education so as to reconcile three forces: competition, which provides incentives; cooperation, which gives strength; and solidarity, which unites.”

Butch Hernandez (butchhernandez@gmail.com) is the executive director of the Eggie Apostol Foundation and the education lead for talent development at Ibpap.