Narrowing skills gap needs academe-industry alliance

18.08.2005
Von April B.

Industry experts and practitioners have long been complaining about the competencies gap between what the academe is supplying, in terms of manpower skills, and what businesses actually need -- resulting in the industry?s sluggish development.

And it is this gap which the Asia Pacific College (APC) addressed during its 5th ICT Week Symposia entitled ?IT all you can.?

In an interview with Computerworld Philippines, Edmundo ?Toti? Casiño, a lecturer at APC, explained that the annual symposia are part of the school?s approach in helping bridge the gap between the academe and the industry. ?We invited industry practitioners and education sector leaders to talk about the current issues in the industry so that our students are aware of the world they are planning to break into sometime in the future,? said Casiño.

Casiño is hoping that APC?s IT week will serve as an example to other schools. ?We held this conference to create an awareness that we have to address the industry?s issues collectively. We need to address the issues as one team, not one corporation, not one university, but one team,? he added. Casiño also pronounced that ICT?s impact on the academe is important, as it will take the developing countries out of poverty. ?We?re not competing with Ateneo or La Salle, we?re competing with the rest of the world.?

One of the issues tackled in the symposia is the deteriorating state of the country?s education system, especially in the areas of math, science, and English. Commission on Higher Education (CHED) commissioner Dr. Cristina Damasco-Padolina, one of the speakers in the symposia, explained that most college freshmen are not ready for college-level math, science, and English. ?This is probably a fault in our education system. We only have 10 years of basic education while the rest of the world have 11 or 12 years,? Damasco-Padolina explained.

Two-fold remedy

The CHED commissioner explained that the remedy to this problem is two-fold -- targeting the students and targeting the teachers.

On the student side, CHED?s technical panel is mulling over an additional six units in each of the problematic subjects. This is to prepare a stronger basic skill foundation for the students. Also, CHED is currently working with the Technical Education and Skills Development Authority (TESDA) to determine the core competencies that are necessary to today?s industries.

CHED and TESDA are working with industry experts to determine the necessary skills that a student should acquire. Whatever data they gather from the industry experts are incorporated into the curriculum of schools.

According to Maria Susan Dela Rama, regional director at TESDA, a stronger set of core competencies is important in filling the numerous jobs awaiting the students. Dela Rama stated that in the next five years, there will be 800,000 job opportunities in the IT industry alone. There will be 150,000 vacancies in software development, 22,000 in medical transcription, 13,000 in animation, 350,000 in call centers, and 250,000 more for other sectors in the business process outsourcing (BPO) arena.

Dela Rama also stressed that inaccessibility to state-of-the-art technology is also affecting the quality of education. TESDA and CHED, however, are already working with different companies, such as Microsoft Corp., to provide computers and Internet access to schools in remote areas.

On the teacher side, CHED is offering full scholarships with more content courses to produce a more competent batch of faculty. ?Good teachers are important. A good curriculum is worthless if the faculty is incapable of delivering what is expected of them,? stressed Damasco-Padolina.

Despite this CHED initiative, several schools are hesitant to let their teachers take these scholarships. According to Damasco-Padolina, the reason for this is that schools simply do not have enough money to provide for the salaries of substitute teachers, in place of the regular faculty. But Damasco-Padolina asserted that CHED is willing to provide for the salary of a hired substitute to allow the teachers to study.