Cedf-it pledges to continue building academy-industry link

THE Cebu Educational Development Foundation for Information Technology (Cedf-it) pledged to strengthen further the academe-industry linkage, particularly in job matching, with the still increasing demand for IT-BPO/KPO jobs in Cebu.

Cedf-it executive director Jun Sa-a said the main thrust of Cedf-it is still on helping the academe produce talents who meet industry requirements.

Cebu Investment Promotions Center managing director Joel Mari Yu earlier announced the expansion of eight new international companies into Cebu this year.

According to Yu, these firms mostly do KPO activities and would be looking for highly-skilled individuals for medical billing, data mining and medical encoding jobs.

Growing demand

“The demand is growing. We still need to prepare our graduates especially that companies here are diversified and each has specific requirements,” Saa said.

He said Cedf-it’s main goal to prepare graduates for absorption in the industry.

“Although Cedf-it has already helped bridged the gap of the academe and the industry, we cannot simply rest on our laurels. These companies are banking on Cebu’s huge and rich talent pool,” Saa said in an interview with Sun.Star Cebu.

“We need to constantly upgrade and equip our graduates with the right skills and
knowledge so they could adjust or keep up with the demands of these companies,” he added.

Certification

Aside from inking partnerships with various industries and universities, Ced-fit, which was established during the Cebu IT Summit in March 2001, partnered with the Technical Education and Skills Development Authority (Tesda) for grants on various training programs on technical and non-technical skills trainings.

In terms of helping the industries get the right talent pool, Saa said Cedf-it is aggressively promoting the Philippine IT General Certification Exam (Phil IT GCE), a two-hour online exam comparable to PhilNITS, an IT certification exam that is recognized by many countries in the world.

According to Saa, the Phil IT GCE is offered twice a year and is now being participated by major universities here.

“While we continuously promote this exam among IT professionals and fresh graduates, we also hope to earn the strong support of companies,” Saa said.

Saa noted that companies may use the result of the exam even in the preliminary selection of applicants.

“In this way we would be able to encourage students to do well in school, improve their craft, so they could get their desired jobs when they apply. Companies on the other hand, are assured of the quality of employees they are hiring,” he said.

The Phil IT GCE is a hundred-item, multiple-choice exam that consists of 20 percent easy, 60 percent average, and 20 percent difficult questions.

Evaluation

“There is a renewed interest and awareness of this exam in Cebu, but it still needs more push,” Saa said.

Phil IT GCE is considered as an overall evaluation of the graduate’s level of cognitive, psychomotor, and affective learning as specified in BS Computer Science; BS Computer Engineering; BS Information Technology; and, BS Information Management curricula, as well as the graduate’s knowledge, skills, and attitudes pertinent to advanced or latest trends in IT as required by industry.