ICT grads urged to acquire new skills

President Arroyo has stressed the need for new graduates of information and communications technology to acquire additional skills that would give them a competitive edge over other ICT workers from other countries.

In her speech before the 2002 commencement exercises of the AMA Computer University at the Araneta Coliseum in Quezon City last Friday, the President noted that having other abilities gives a job applicant a headstart from the rest.

The President noted that employment in the ICT industry, which is dubbed as the world’s new economy, offers wide-ranging job opportunities.

These jobs, the President said, include those manning call centers, and programming and software development.

For placements in call centers, the President urged computer schools to make their students undergo an advance English speech education so that they would be proficient in English.

The President explained that this is the principal reason why there is a call center academy in the country.

With software development, the President noted that graduates who want to go into this specialized area should be prepared with intrinsic creativity in computers. These people, who she noted included computer genius Bill Gates, have a natural ability in computers.

As for programming, the President noted that graduates should be certified programmers for a particular curriculum to have more edge over others.

The President said these additional skills are needed to prepare students in the "harsh, dog-eats-dog" reality.

She said that the government, through the Commission on Higher Education, is instituting massive reforms to "cleanse" the computer education sector.

"We want to avoid schools becoming diploma mills," she said.

Mrs. Arroyo has commended the University for its educational efforts for the past two decades and for its numerous contributions in the academe and the local IT industry despite economic slump. GMA gave her keynote address while AMACU president Dr. Amable Aguiluz V delivered his presidential speech and awarded recognition to graduates with honors and special citations.

Senator Franklin Drilon, CHED Commissioner Manuel Punzal, American League of Colleges and Universities (ALOCU) president Dr. Donald Ruthenberg, among other dignitaries, graced the occasion and gave their inspirational speeches for the new graduates.

While the plight of IT graduates are in the headlines today, AMA nonetheless stands proud of this batch of new-age techies and its great number of outstanding students, a living proof that AMA is the consistent producer of world-class talents and skilled manpower reserves.

The AMA Office of the Alumni Affairs (AMA-OAA), in cooperation with Infotech Professional Services Inc., has a job placement program which helps its graduates locate a job fitted to their qualifications.

On a latest official report, AMA-OAA has disclosed that 67 percent of AMA Graduates were placed in an IT-related position, 12 percent entered a non-IT field, six percent were IT instructors, another six percent were employed abroad as IT programmers, five percent opened their own businesses, two percent were counted to be freelance local IT programmers, and another two percent were pursuing post-graduate studies, out of 15,160 graduates as of this year.

Prominent AMA alumni include Sean Gerard Villoria, CEO of Garsol Management Innovators; Alejandro Mañalac, AVP of Moldex Realty Marketing; Rachel Capiral, Project Manager for Corporate IT of Walt Disney, USA; and Ariel Casala, Senior Consultant for Citibank, Singapore; to name a few.

The reality of job market having an oversupply of Bill Gates enthusiasts does not stops AMA to continue its mission but rather challenge because of the belief that opportunities grew only thinner for people who neglects the value of hard work and perseverance.

Having conferred its university status last year, AMA has distinctly earned the title of being the First and Largest IT University in Asia. AMACU has initiated and maintained programs that are in harmony with the government’s ICT thrust like the AMA Foundation Scholarship Grant to aid economically underprivileged students, ConnectED.ph Initiative to foster IT competency among public school teachers and government employees, and recently, the first AMA IT Olympiad was launched to instill ICT awareness among High School students in both public and private schools nationwide, not to mention other progressing projects in the pipeline.

It is to be noted that AMA was the first to offer and author Computer Science and Computer Engineering so much so when heightened international university linkages and research studies has introduced Mechatronics Engineering as part of its newest course offerings this year.