Free IT course for poor, deserving students

Over 190 underprivileged youth in the Visayas region will have the opportunity to fulfill their dreams of becoming Information Technology (IT) practitioners.

The poor but deserving young individuals will benefit the scholarship program offered by JP Morgan and the Passerelles Numérique (PN), a French nonprofit organization operating in three Asian countries: Cambodia, Vietnam and the Philippines.

The program targets to capacitate the youth with knowledge and skills to become IT experts in the future.

Also, in a bid to “break their family’s cycle of poverty and contribute to economic growth of the country,” the beneficiaries will be trained on hard and soft IT skills, including professional life training, for two and a half years at no cost to the beneficiaries.

The 2.5-year IT training includes one year and five months of pre-training, 18 months of basic and advanced IT training, two months of IT specialization (e.g. Java development, Web development, software testing, systems administrations), and 10 months of on-the-job training and research or thesis.

“We get to highlight these programs and share our support to the underprivileged youth and equip them with the right IT skills and soft leadership skills to become employable and successful in the long run,” said Patricia Javier-Gutierez, the executive director and head of Corporate Communications for JP Morgan Philippines.

Every year, the selection team of PN Philippines goes through a tedious four-step process— selection, training, education, and employment— to select “talented and motivated” underprivileged youth in the poorest regions of the Visayas.

Since 2009, there were at least 355 who graduated from PN Philippines with an employment rate of hundred percent within the first two months after graduation.

The University of San Carlos (USC)-Talamban Campus is PN’s partner school.

Upon completion of their training, a certificate in Computer Technology will be given to the students delivered by USC.

“We design our curriculum in collaboration with USC and partner companies from the IT industry to adjust it to the latest updates of the market. Furthermore, we use the latest education tools teaching methodologies, and technology devices, emphasizing the development of creativity, problem solving and communication skills of our students,” said Rene Abdallah, the training manager of PN Philippines.

According to PN, the Philippines continues to experience a high youth unemployment and a rise in the poverty rate with at least 25 percent of young people are neither working despite having strong economic growth.

With 35 percent of the population under 15 years old, the wish to continue studying is very strong, but the cost and the lack of professional training programs are making it a hindrance for underprivileged students to pursue higher education, keeping this dream out of reach.

TECHNOLOGY TRENDS 2017

With the times changing ever so constantly, it is important that the graduates who get into the IT industry should be able to understand the current trends.

Accenture’s Managing Director for Technology Douglas Yballe, in his report, said Artificial Intelligence (AI) is the User Interface (UI), Design for Humans; Workforce Marketplace; Ecosystem Power Plays, and The Uncharted are new trends for this year.

“It is important to know the current trends in the IT industry in order to address the needs in the market and how to implement them successfully with the help of the sectors, (as well as) to support the progress of country’s economy,” said PN External Relations Manager Marice Jade Chua.

STRENGTHENING IT

CURRICULUM

During the symposium held at JCentre Mall yesterday, representatives from the academe, private IT companies and the public sector had the chance to round up and brainstorm on what each sector can do to help with the current curriculum of IT.

Pastor Ali Najarro of the Department of Education (DepEd)Cebu City Division admitted that current IT curriculum is far from industry standards.

“The present IT curriculum needs to be strengthened in order to make it more essential. The response of every new graduate is just the same which makes none of them stand out. The software that we use isn’t even the same with what the new graduates have learned. Based on experience, I would recommend universities to enhance more on the experience,” Orville Avila of Aboitiz Equity Ventures Inc., for his part, said.

In response to this, Mary Jane Sabellano, the Computer Science Department chair of USC, said they have ongoing preparations for the tertiary level to revise the curriculum and review the guidelines.

“We have been consulting industries to prepare the students when they go to employment. There will also be bridging programs that the university is preparing for these students who want to take these subjects from different strands,” said Sabellano.