To address skills mismatch, business industries tapped to craft school curriculum

CEBU, Philippines - The academic sector in Cebu led by the University of San Carlos (USC) and the University of the Philippines (UP Cebu College) aims to strengthen the linkage to further address the mismatch between industry needs and the academe.

USC Board of Trustees chairman Ernesto M. Pernia said that together with UPCC and other universities in Cebu, the academe sector here will be more active in bridging the gap between industry and the school institutions.

"Academe-industry linkage is the way to go," said Pernia adding that getting the industrialists or the industry players involved in crafting the curriculum of schools is very vital to fill in the vacuum of mismatch.

Pernia said the industry players will be the "frontrunners" in the curricula making in universities. Although this has been done in the past, "this time we're making it a reality."

In the Information, Technology and Communication (ICT), Cebu is more popular in the academe-industry linkage. However, because of the speed of the technology development, partnerships need to be further strengthened and sustained.

In a separate interview with Cebu Educational Development for Information Technology Foundation (Cedfit) executive director Jun Sa-a, he said that a sustaining industry-academe linkage is very important for the growth of the sector as they are complementary sectors and one cannot survive without the other.

Cedfit, which primary aims is to sustain and increase the quality and quantity of manpower in ICT industry in Cebu, will strengthen its industry-academe roadmap, which include the provision of ready-employment for ICT graduates from different universities and colleges in Cebu.

For high-value skills in IT profession, such as software and web development, technical support, and other complicated and sophisticated skills demand in the sector, most big companies offer at least P40 thousand a month salary.

Currently, there is a shortage of supply for high-value IT skills. Demand is estimated at 1,500 per year. Cebu on the other hand, can only supply an average of 50 software engineer graduates a month.

The influx of big names in the IT industry in the world, that have existing operations in Cebu, will surely attract more multinational IT companies to come to Cebu.

Sa-a said the province should be ready to supply with the needed talents of these IT company giants.

The challenge now is on how to improve the number of graduates having specialized degrees in different ICT fields.

This is the reason why a more intensified academe-industry linkage will be set up in Cebu. Serious partnership between these two sectors should be sustained for long term.

Another challenge is also in the engineering methodology process of doing high-end IT works, Sa-a said.

"Higher-end IT is very broad, and complicated. Its skills' requirement is also constantly moving," he said.

Meanwhile, the Commission on Higher Education (CHED) earlier announced that it has introduced another breakthrough in education, in partnership with technology solutions company IBM, opening up a specialized course in business analytics.

Business Analytics for Information Technology Education (ITE) and the Bachelor of Science in Business Administration (BSBA) programs were implemented in this school year (2013-14).

The CHED Memorandum Orders were passed and co-developed in collaboration with IBM,  taking into consideration the paradigm shift and growing demand for the local and international business landscapes, and are geared towards helping transform the Philippines become more globally competitive across all industries.

"Recognizing the impending global talent shortage, CHED and IBM in collaboration with other key higher education stakeholders, sought to address this challenge that we face as a country.  These newly approved specialization tracks on business analytics for ITE and BSBA programs bring us a step closer to preparing our nation to capture and lead in this big global analytics market opportunity," said Dr. Patricia B. Licuanan, Chairperson of CHED. 

"We are elated and encouraged that several top notch higher education institutions have already signed up and have committed to implement these analytics electives this coming school year," Licuanan added.

The growing demand for leaders to make better and faster business decisions makes business analytics and optimization a huge global market opportunity, estimated at about US$160 billion by 2015.  High volume data continues to come from both structured and unstructured sources, including social media. 

Today, organizations can leverage advanced analytics to address market uncertainty, complexity, volatility, and revenue growth.  However, according to Gartner Big Data demand will reach 4.4 million jobs globally by 2015, but only one-third of those jobs will be filled due to a lack of trained skilled professionals globally. (FREEMAN)