Major industry players bare requirements for ICT grads

Technical, business and communications skills – these are just some of the major prerequisites ICT (information and communication technology) graduates should have, the Information and Communications Technology Academy (iAcademy) said during a recent open forum.

iAcademy is the Philippine partner of Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) subsidiary Carnegie Technology Education (CTE).

Major industry players from sectors such as manufacturing and retail and distribution, communications and banking and finance, require certain technical, non-technical and other considerable qualifications that best fit their ICT requirements.

Specifically, these industries have specific skills which they consider when evaluating candidates for entry-level ICT positions. For one, the banking and finance industry, as represented by the Bank of the Philippine Islands (BPI), China Banking Corp. and Equitable PCI Bank in the open forum, require ICT grads to have knowledge of Mainframe (Cobol), Java or Visual Basic, relational database programming, Micro computing and SQL, and some PC applications.

Chowking Food Corp. and Novartis Healthcare (Phils.), representing the manufacturing and retail and distribution industry, on the other hand, need grads with competent skills in database administration (Visual Basic, SQL) and project management, and prefer professionals with vendor certification.

Meanwhile, the communications industry, as represented by Bell Telecommunication Phils. Inc., Destiny Cable Inc. and Globe Telecom in the forum, needs people with skills in database management (SQL, Access, Oracle, Sybase), database administration and systems administration, network security, and business recovery and documentation, and with knowledge of both front and backend solutions.

Executives from these companies unanimously agreed that most of today’s ICT graduates walk away with just a BS diploma, average to poor communication skills and minimal business know-how.

"We believe that if schools – especially those that cater to molding good ICT graduates – invest in combining competence building, applied skills and hands-on experience, they will be able to produce ICT-enabled professionals," said Mitch Andaya, dean and chief operating officer of iAcademy.

Citing a study made by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), Andaya said ICT accounts for a large share of investment and contributes significantly to output and productivity growth despite cyclical difficulties, like poor ratings in certification exams and the recent slowdown.

Filipino ICT skills, however, are still testing the waters as far as global competitiveness is concerned. In a recent IT certification examination given by the Japanese IT Standards Examination of the Philippines Foundation Inc. (JITSE-Phil), the Philippines faired rather poorly, creating a large room for many improvements.

JITSE-Phil is a private sector-led foundation that administers the exam that seeks to determine the capabilities and readiness of local IT professionals based on Japanese standards. It hopes to improve the Filipino passing rate by importing Japan textbooks and expertise.

"The growth of the ICT sector, however, still remains strong and the overall demand for ICT skills continues to grow," Andaya explained. "This also means that the demand for ICT skills continues to grow, creating concerns about possible labor shortages and gaps in worker skills."

To match the needs and demands of the ICT-driven industries, schools must now make ends meet by providing a value proposition that will produce globally competitive ICT graduates who are easily employable and preferred by major industry players here and abroad, and by providing dynamic, relevant and applied education for tomorrow’s achievers and movers.

According to Andaya, competence development is one of the iAcademy’s top priority, which is why vendor-based certification from Cisco, Microsoft, Sun, Java and Macromedia, among others, is being offered.

Being an affiliate of CMU subsidiary CTE is also more than an advantage for iAcademy, which is able to provide world-class ICT education through this partnership.