UP, DOST forge pact to produce more microelectronics engineers

The government and some of the country’s top educational institutions have forged an agreement to produce more microelectronics engineers to further boost the electronics industry.

The Department of Science and Technology (DOST) and the University of the Philippines (UP) - Department of Electrical and Electronics Engineering on Friday signed a memorandum of agreement (MOA) with some of the country’s top technological schools "to address the immediate need" to sustain the country’s competitive edge in semiconductor and microelectronics.

In the MOA signed with De La Salle University, Mapua Institute of Technology (MIT), University of San Carlos in Cebu City, and Mindanao State University (MSU)-Iligan Institute of Technology, the agreement focused on strengthening the graduate programs and research activities of the schools to advance the country’s microelectronics industry.

"If we are going to produce the numbers needed by the industry, we have to get these institutions," Science Secretary Estrella Alabastro said.

Alabastro stressed the electronics industry comprised 80 percent of the country’s total exports, which provides jobs to about 300,000 Filipinos.

Under the agreement, the DOST will be providing more than P8.6 million in grant assistance to UP for the three-year implementation of the project "Developing Microelectronics Education — Phase 1 and 2."

Acknowledging UP’s important role in the development of semiconductor and microelectronics industry, the state university is tasked to transfer basic and advanced courses in microelectronics to four partner universities.

UP would also provide expertise through the conduct of short-term immersion programs of the member schools.

The DLSU, MIT, University of San Carlos, and the MSU-IIT, on the other hand, would "provide counter funding of not less than five percent of the total project cost, in cash or in kind."

School officials said the industry contributed about $27 billion worth of exports in the economy last year.

The government aims to increase the revenues from $22 billion to $50 billion by 2010, while increasing employment from 300,000 to one million.

By 2010, it also intends to create 600 MS and 200 PhDs for the industry and 200 MS and 60 PhDs for the academe.

UP Chancellor Dr. Sergio Cao said the government must be creative in finding ways to make it easy for Filipino engineers to conduct research in the country.

"It is also important like for UP to provide working environment that would make them want to stay, in many cases some of them are willing to stay but if you have a new PhD who studied in Japan or US, it would be hard for them to do research when they go back to UP because of lack of laboratories," Cao said.

"We must also provide financial incentives and that requires creativity for the government," he added.

The project started in November 2005 and will end in October this year.

Some of the accomplishments during the first year of implementation of the project include the integration of new courses for the UP engineering curriculum, acquisition of workstations and FPGA (Field Programmable Gate Array) development system, as well as the introduction of self-paced learning modules for integrated circuit design courses for MS students and UP researchers.

The DOST, through the Philippine Council for Advanced Science and Technology Research and Development (PCASTRD), would monitor the progress and output of the project to ensure the objectives of the projects would be attained.