Press Release
April 2, 2007

Angara urges realignment of courses with job market

Sen. Edgardo J. Angara pressed yesterday for the realignment of university programs with the job market so that education and training would suit the needs of the economy.

We are missing a great economic opportunity because our educational system is not entirely in sync with the demand of the job market, he observed.

Angara said that scores of business process outsourcing (BPOs) companies are shifting their operations from India to the Philippines and are set to invest P3.7 billion this year.

The BPOs need tens of thousands of workers with above-average language skills and decent knowledge of information technology. The hardcore IT companies have 500 job openings at any given time. Sadly, our tertiary graduates cannot meet the demand, he lamented.

Angara said that aside from the local employment, BPOs are also advertising for the posting in such places like North America, Japan, Singapore and Dubai of call center agents, network administrators, programmers, application specialists, and technical support staff .

The investment this year of P3.7 billion could double or triple, with the demand never tapering off, except for one problem our educational system does not produce enough graduates to fill up their manpower needs, he added.

He stressed that he is not advocating that colleges and universities should cater to BPOs and neglect the other competencies and courses.

What I am saying is that the educational system and our training and retraining programs in general should address the dysfunctional relationship between college training and the demands of the job market, Angara explained.

He said that the university programs should start their realignment with the altered economic landscape and the radically-overhauled employment needs.

Angara cited the projection of the Department of Labor and Employment that more than 4 million jobs would be generated in the next five years by agribusiness, electronics, cyber services including BPO, animation and transcription, tourism including medical, health care services, mining, aviation and construction industries.

And yet, only 2.7 million are expected to graduate from these fields over the next five years, he said, to accentuate his point.

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