Chamber to strengthen alliance with academe

CEBU, Philippines - In a bid to minimize the gap between industry and the academe, the Cebu Chamber of Commerce and Industry (CCCI) pitches a plan to work closely with the academe.

Cebu Chamber of Commerce and Industry (CCCI) vice president Teodoro Locson said that the chamber is planning to help the academe players in Cebu to revisit their expenditure on training, so as to fine tune with the current needs of the private sector, across industries.

In Cebu, aside from the obvious needs in service sectors like hospitality, Locson said there is also a need to extend academe's training offers in telecom engineering, ICT (high value) skills, and English proficiency.

He said although there is a stronger stance among academe sector to improve English proficiency among students, this remains to be a huge problem.

The promising growth of Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) is faced with problems on the lack of supply of engineers, programmers, and even graduates who do not only speak good English, but have high level of comprehension.

The chamber, according to Locson is planning to work with the academe to revisit their investments made in training, so that graduates will be able to land decent and high paying jobs immediately after graduation.

The Philippine Chamber of Commerce and Industry (PCCI) has started similar program in Luzon, but focused more on tourism manpower development.

One of the programs is the partnership with a German Foundation for an academe-industry matching program in the tourism sector in Batangas, in close coordination with the Technical Educational Skills and Development Authority (TESDA).

The same program will be duplicated in other regions, in coordination with regional chamber of commerce groups, said PCCI president  George Barcelon.

Earlier, PCCI chairman for education Eduardo Gutierrez-Ong said that gaps in human resource development have significant economic costs as they undermine the country's global competitiveness, productivity and efficiency.

 According to Ong a strong tripartite partnership between government, academe, and industry will create an educational system that provides the right training to prepare Filipinos workers to support local industry's expansion and compete in the global employment market.

 Without intervention, the workforce will be unprepared for the skills requirements of local industry and the government's national development plan, undermining economic progress, he said.

In addition, local workers will be ill equipped to face the challenges-and take advantage of the opportunities-of "global realities" including globalization, trade liberalization, information and technology advancements, and bilateral and multilateral employment arrangements.

Ong said a strong workforce is crucial now that statistics show the Philippines' ranking in a number of world competitiveness indices going up in 2013 compared to 2012. (FREEMAN)