By Oscar R. Sanez

Most education forums discuss the need to bridge the gap between industry requirements and university qualifications. One of the most glaring manifestations of this gap is in the fast-growing BPO industry which has a low recruiting yield of 5% to 6%–only five to six successful hires for every 100 walk-in applicants. While there has been a slight improvement on this data, the recruiting teams of BPO companies in the Philippines continue to experiment with innovative recruiting techniques, including partnering with staffing agencies and schools to capture the target recruits.

Two years ago, BPAP initiated a partnership with the Coordinating Council of Private Educational Associations (COCOPEA) to try bringing into the academe the industry’s successful short-term programs in converting “near hires” to full hires. Prior to this, BPAP led the distribution of training scholarships to qualified near-hires that allow these candidates to undergo 100 hours of English language training using an industry-developed and TESDA-certified standard training course. The conversion rate towards successful hiring was high at 65% to 72%.

Thus, a small task force made up of COCOPEA and BPAP representatives paired BPO companies with universities to run a short-term program focused on English language proficiency. The one-semester test with four partner schools and four partner BPO companies revealed a few insights.

The biggest insight is that the industry-standard English program which had proven successful in the “vocational school” environment can be replicated in the campus. The success rate was at 60%. More important though is the understanding of the conditions that should exist in order for this linkage program to work. First, the courseware must be a national standard and followed to the letter by the teachers through a standard teacher-student workbook. Second, the class size has to be no more than 25 students. Finally, the English teachers need to be trained on a new method of teaching, that of an interactive teaching environment and not a lecture session. Now to teach English in an interactive and thinking manner where the students speak more frequently than the teacher, is a whole new paradigm that could intimidate the unaccustomed English professor.

With this new level of understanding, the BPAP-COCOPEA team made the next move of enrolling a bigger set of 21 schools and 18 BPO partners and targeting a total of 22,500 enrolees in the program for the school year 2009-2010. The mission remains to be a key driving force for the team, and that is to introduce a dramatically upgraded English language proficiency program to Philippine universities. On May 5, the AdEPT program was officially rolled out and as of May 29, a total of 54 teachers were trained to become certified Adept teachers—fully trained in the new courseware and the correct methodology.

Meanwhile, to address the sustainability of the program, the BPAP-COCOPEA project team is addressing a few important areas.

First, the team sees this program as primarily a “competency development and employability” program. AdEPT now stands for “Advance English pre-employment Training” and not “Advance English Proficiency Training.” Hence, we see the need to integrate competency assessment tools for pre- and post-assessment of students and trainers going through the program. Second, the team sees the importance of introducing a “computer-based” competence development program in the early part of the college years to increase the intake of students entering AdEPT program in the junior or senior year. Several CBT tools are being assessed now and, by next semester, they will be piloted in some of the partner universities. Third, the team is adding a layer of experiential activity tied to participating BPO companies as a form of internship in the final semester of college. Hence, the final Adept program will compose of 80 hours of computer-based English language program introduced in the early years of college; an intense 80-hour period of AdEpt courseware introduced in the last semester of college; and 40 hours of internship with the partner BPO company, for a total of 200 hours of OJT program as prescribed by CHED.

By the second semester of SY 2009-10, we should see 15 classes per campus across 20 campuses. With 25 enrolees per class and with two semesters and one summer program in the school year, we should be able to hit our goal of 22,500 enrolees in the year. Assuming we hit the normal success rate of 60%, this means an uptake of over 15,000 new recruits coming through this program alone. In the end, we have highly qualified and experienced teachers, a viable program for partner schools, an excellent source of staffing for partner BPO companies and achievable career prospects for young graduates. This makes it a true industry-academic linkage that works.

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