Computerworld Philippines :: CIO Roundtables Education

Peer Perspective. IT Leadership. Business Results

Studying IT

By the Computerworld Philippines Staff
August 1, 2008

Now well back on its feet after the dotcom burst, the country’s IT industry appears very vibrant and promising with more jobs coming in from foreign clients and more local IT shops opening office. With the growth of the industry, however, comes the “‘happy problem” of producing enough IT talent to fulfill the huge demand coming from the industry.

For its anniversary issue, Computerworld Philippines dedicated this month’s CIO Roundtable discussion to a topic often coupled with the continuous growth of the local IT industry—the quality of IT education in the country. The problem, as pointed out by many industry practitioners and veterans, does not only revolve around the quantity of IT graduates available to fill in the positions in the industry workforce but, more importantly, touches on the need for quality in the education of our IT students.

Sponsored by Acer Philippines, the roundtable discussion turned out to be an exchange of ideas and suggestions for the improvement of the quality of IT education in the country, with perspectives coming from both the academe and the IT industry.

The participants in this year’s 6th CIO Roundtable were: Milani Austria, Ph.D., assistant dean for technological studies at Jose Rizal University; Rolino Bucao Jr., vice president for IT development at Banco De Oro; Reynaldo Menorias, corporate IT manager at the VBP Group of Companies; Tina Roxas, IT manager of 3M Philippines; and Paulino Tan, Ph.D., president of Asia Pacific College.

Nilda Eliquen, program coordinator for the School of IT at Mapua Institute of Technology, sent her answers through email as she was unable to make it to the roundtable discussion.

Excerpts of the discussion follow:

Computerworld Philippines: Based on the IT people you hire, how would you rate the quality of IT education schools give today? Has it improved?

Roxas: I’m in the process of hiring a programmer now because we have a vacancy for a developer; and my experience with applicants so far is that they are very technical. I think what we are missing with IT graduates today is the communication skills. They can barely talk in English and they are very shy; they cannot open up a conversation or ask me questions regarding the company or the nature of the job. I think we need to have a very holistic approach in the education of IT people such that they not only have the necessary technical skills but they should also be able to communicate and relate with people well.

CWP: But in terms of the technical skills are they adequate?

Roxas: It really depends on the requirements of the company and the position; like for us, we are looking for an RPG (Report Program Generator) programmer and we are having difficulty right now.

Bucao: You normally won’t see a fresh graduate who knows how to program in RPG.

CWP: So what happens, do you still have to train them?

Roxas: Yes.

Bucao: If you’re going to get a new graduate, you really have to train them in programming languages because I think what they use right now is either C or Visual Basic. The programming language we use in BDO (Banco de Oro) is Java; although there are graduates who can do Java, we find that we still have to retrain them to be able to make use of them.

CWP: How long does it usually take for them to be able to be fit in the job?

Bucao: I actually have a plantilla of around 70 people but now I’m lacking 20 people. I never complete my plantilla because every time I hire, some of my people would already leave. I’ve been with the bank for more than six years and I believe I’m now on my fourth generation of programmers—that’s how fast they come and go.

CWP: Normally how long do they stay with you?

Bucao: I think two years would be enough for them to get a job in Singapore.

CWP: We had another get-together where we invited about 50 CIOs and they talked about that problem the poaching of IT talents by Singaporean companies. So you are actually having that problem too?

Bucao: Yes, I’m having that problem too; plus the fact that even if you look for experienced Java programmers you wouldn’t find any because they are also already in Singapore.

Menorias: The problem here in the Philippines is the salary; if you are a Java programmer your salary may be above Php70,000, and most companies here cannot afford that.

Austria: Actually, the PSIA (Philippine Software Industry Association) and we at the COCOPEA (Coordinating Council of Private Educational Associations) have this initiative—a Java boot camp, where we try to train teachers for them to be able to pass this on to the students. It’s a 240-hour training designed to help students so that they need not be trained as much when they get hired after graduation. This is an initiative that we are doing right now to address the huge demand for Java programmers; right now, there are seven pilot schools already part of this project so probably little by little the academe can address the demand from the industry.

CWP: But you still have to address the salary problem.

Tan: It’s the same problem expressed many years ago. We cannot compete against the foreign salaries. So the only thing we can do is try to improve our way of training programmers and people like these that are needed by the industry. Don’t forget we ourselves train trainers but the first thing that would pirate them would be the industry itself because industry pays better than the academe; and then the industry would complain about piracy by the other countries. The only thing we can do is focus on trying to make our training system more efficient and just keep on training more.

CWP: So how are you doing it in your school?

Tan: What we do is we have, in effect, set a premise that it is next to impossible to really hope that the academic environment as is will be able to train the people needed for industry. Now, it’s not because there’s no willingness to do that, it’s just that the whole system and structure of a tertiary institution is really “biased” against the school being able to train people for the industry; by that I mean you have problems with tuition fees, you have problems with facilities, and you have problems with teachers. With all of these problems, it’s going to be difficult to expect the school to be able to train the type of people that you specifically need. In other words, when they graduate, don’t expect them to be good in Java but we can get together and train them so that they can be Java programmers. Don’t forget that in the academic environment you are not only expected to train them in Java, you are supposed to train them with the basic, general education, using the holistic approach.

The idea is we have to train them so that they become very trainable. This is now where the industry and the academe have to get together and do that. That’s what Lani (Austria) was referring to when COCOPEA took on this task of tying up with the Philippine software Industry Association. The UP ITTC is now doing the same; with funding from CHED, they are now training about 150 Java programmers in their IT center.

Bucao: Let me expound on what Dr. Tan was saying. Truth is, we do not really expect new graduates to be good Java programmers, in fact, it doesn’t matter what type of language the academe is using to teach the basic concepts and the fundamentals that you need. If these students are properly trained in the basic concepts and fundamentals, it will be very easy for them to learn new technology and new languages. What we actually do when we hire new graduates is we ask them to take a computer programmer aptitude exam; we don’t really want to find out whether they could program, what we want to find out is if they have the aptitude to become programmers and I think that is what is important, and then we can train them further.

Eliguen: The BSCS and BSIT programs of Mapua, like all other programs it offers follow the concept of Outcomes Based Education—an approach to learning that seeks to link education more closely to the real world. Under this concept, BSCS and BSIT curricula are designed to produce students with specific competencies by the time they completed the programs.

CWP: What should the academe and the government do to make today’s students workforce-ready?

Tan: We’ve been trying to convince the government to provide funding for what we call bridging programs.

CWP: When you say “we are trying to convince,” who do you refer to with the “we?”

Tan: A lot of people from the academe. There’s a group now, a presidential task on education headed by Fr. Nerves. There is, of course, the COCOPEA effort and there’s the group in CHED, with some funding of maybe Php15 million to Php10 million, that is helping schools do the post baccalaureate training program, and there are quite a number of schools involved. The idea is to force the schools to start thinking now about demand-driven educational. With the pick up of IT again over the last of couple of years, perhaps this is really the time to think about industry and the academe coming together.
The PSIA and BPA/P (Business Process Association of the Philippines) have responded very positively. BPA/P was able to get a lot of the TESDA vouchers and has given a lot of them to PSIA.

The idea is the industry provides expertise and the academe provides the people to focus on training, because the industry people are too busy to focus on training while the people from the academe have more time to learn and be able to train other people on this.

Bucao: The government and the academe should do something to standardize the curriculum being used by the different schools in their IT course offerings. I’m not a firm believer of regulating it through a board examination but if that is what it will take to ensure that the students are getting good IT education, then so be it.

A continuous review of the curriculum should be made and should be updated as often as necessary. Although this may be difficult, this is a necessity due to the fast-paced changes happening in technology.

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