Academe, telco forge partnership to address IT manpower shortage

The academe vows to strengthen its partnership with the Information and Technology industry to address the IT-related manpower supply problem in Cebu.

One of Cebu's largest universities, the University of San Jose Recoletos (USJ-R) is now in talks with Globe Telecom for the latter to set up an incubation facility in the school under the Globe Technical Advancement Program (GTAP-2).

Gregg Gabison, USJ-R dean for College of Computer and Communication Technology, said that there is a need for the academic sector in Cebu to move fast and cope with the fast movement of technology manpower supply needs, and software skills, and a research and development (R&D) facility within the school is desperately needed.

 Globe Telecom already picked USJ-R as the sole beneficiary of its GTAP-1 program, a five-year academe-industry program started in 2005. This provided the school the capacity to produce high skilled computer engineers, of which graduates are 100 percent hired by industry players' immediately after graduation.

The Ayala-controlled Globe Telecom invested P4 million in 2005 to establish the facility in the school providing rightful equipment for hands-on training for Computer Engineering and Information Technology Students. The program also included extensive training for faculties.

 Gabison said the GTAP-1 has been successful in providing highly skilled graduates specifically in telecommunication hardware development.

This time under the GTAP-2, the school hopes to produce world-class scientists in technology, complementing Cebu's bid to become the "Silicon Valley" of Southeast Asia.

According to Gabison, enrollment in ICT related courses, especially in Computer Engineer and IT had been increasing in the last couple of years, specifically this year because of Cebu's position as an emerging BPO destination.

"We are expecting an increase of enrollees in ICT courses in the coming school year 2009-2010, because of Cebu's tremendous need for IT professionals," Gabison said adding that ICT courses interest is expected to level with the nursing and other medical courses soon.

Gabison, who is also one of the advocates of ICT development in Cebu and sits as board of director for Cebu Educational Development Foundation for IT (Cedfit), said that the good industry and academe linkage of Cebu is one of the largest contributors to Cebu's fast development as a number one emerging BPO destination in the world.

Gabison hopes that more companies will implement serious partnership with the academe sector in terms of providing rightful technical curriculum recommendation to wipe off the human resource supply concern in the province.

Job vacancies in broad Information Technology (IT) and IT-enabled services in Cebu are expected to reach 15,000 by 2009, this includes a huge need for software developers and IT engineers. — Ehda M. Dagooc