Wednesday, November 05, 2008 BPO dev't rests on supply, quality of grads: ICT exec By Joy Romares-Sevilla
AN OFFICER of the ICT Davao Inc. claimed Tuesday the development of the business process outsourcing (BPO) industry of the city really relies on the supply and quality of graduates the city produces.
During Tuesday's edition of the Business Forum at the Medispa at SM City Davao, Bert Barriga, vice-president of the ICT Davao Inc., told reporters that there is a need to tweak the curriculum of the schools and universities in the city and attune it to the industry's requirement.
"The thrust is to really focus and develop more animators, systems engineers, computer graphic artists, computer programmers, instead of call center agents because these are very much needed all over the world today, but still we cannot deny the fact that call centers are good for the economy," Barriga said.
He added that the curriculum of the schools and universities should also offer more English units to engineering students because that is the need of the industry, human resources which are not only capable of doing the work of a systems engineer but are also able to communicate with the clients.
"We need to generate more of these talents, but there's still a lot of work to be done, advocacy is a long and tedious process," he said.
Barriga said that to develop the supply and the quality of graduates, human resources should be monitored through accreditation or certification. He said, through this, graduates can be assessed effectively.
The academe is slowly realizing the needs of the BPO industry, he said.
In fact, some universities in the city have already adopted the Technopreneurship program of the Davao City Chamber of Commerce and Industry Inc. (DCCCII) which aims to boost students' productivity.
"We always say that Davao is the best destination for BPOs. It will be hard if a lot of investors will come in, but our supply of quality graduates is not enough, thus we have to develop the human resources by tweaking the curriculum," Barriga added.
