Philippines opens new IT training facility
In a rush to catch up with the IT outsourcing wave, the Philippines has opened a new IT training facility in the country's center of tertiary learning, the State-owned University of the Philippines.
The new UP Information Technology Training Center (UPITTC) sprung from a partnership between the University of the Philippines (UP) and Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA). The center specifically aims to train IT workers for employment in outsourcing companies.
Jaime DL Caro, UP assistant vice president for development, said in an interview with the Philippine Daily Inquirer that this would save outsourcing companies time, space and man hours in training their new recruits.
The training modules to be used in the center were developed by partner-agencies of JICA, the Philippine Software Industry Association (PSIA), and the Electronic Industries Association of the Philippines (EIAPI). Member companies of these partner-agencies have agreed to sponsor scholarship grants to UPITTC trainees, with the option of hiring them.
Caro said that the University invested five million pesos for the UPITTC's first year of operations, with incremental investments of 3.5 million pesos every year.
The project will run as a pilot program until 2006, after which it will be decided if the program will be replicated in other University of the Philippines campuses across the country.
A recent UN e-government survey of 191 countries gave a high rank to the Philippines. The ranking was based on e-government readiness and e-participation index.
With moves like the UPITCC, which aims to harness the country's local talent and native resources, the Philippines shows that it is rising to the global IT challenge.
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