JITSE-Phil passers may get Japanese working visas

Japan’s Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (MET) is working for the approval by the Ministry of Justice of Japan for the issuance of working visa for Filipino IT professionals certified through the Japanese IT Standards Examination (JITSE) of the Philippines.

This was revealed by JITSE-Phil Foundation INC. president Ma. Corazon Akol during the awarding of the successful examinees of the 2002 JITSE-certification exams.

"This is really good news to our IT professionals here because at present only entertainers are issued working visas to Japan," Akol noted. Japan is estimated to hire 50,000 IT professionals in the next five years.

President Arroyo recently concluded a four-day State Visit to Japan where she urged Japanese ICT companies to outsource operations in the Philippines.

JITSE-Phil earlier signed a Mutual Recognition Agreement with the Japan Technology Engineers’ Examination Center (JITEC) for the recognition of the JITSE-Phil Certification Program.

All the materials for the JITSE examinations came from JITEC which is a unit of the Japan Information Processing Development Corp. The test questions were reproduced in the Philippines but the answer sheets came from JITEC. The checking and scoring of the examination was also done by the JITEC in Japan.

Of the 700 examinees for the 2002 JITSE certification, 38 passed the exam for a passing rate of 5.3 percent. This is lower than last year’s passing rate of 6.11 percent. The topnotcher for this year’s exam was Sandra Jean Valentino Chua, a student of the Ateneo de Manila University. Chua, 19, was also the youngest among the successful examinees.

Also in the top 10 examinees were William Yao Jr., Ryan Lester Co, Neil Ongkingco, Erwin Garry Unson, Jan Kenneth Tan, Joseph Sta. Ana, Michael Tan Mariano, Brian Kenneth de Jesus and Joshua Ang Liao.

JITSE-Phil is a joint project of the Philippines’ Department of Trade and Industry and METI and organized by the JITSE-Phil Foundation. It is also sponsored by Fujitsu Philippines Inc. and the Japanese Chamber of Commerce and Industries in the Philippines.