Drop in IT-related enrolees alarms DICT

The Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT) is urging the academe sector to make ICT (information, communications and technology) courses interesting to students.

This after the department noted a decline in ICT enrollees all over the Philippines.

DICT undersecretary Monchito Ibrahim expressed apprehensions on this development, as the country is heading towards further leveraging on its rich talents in innovation and technology or software development.

Ibrahim made this pronouncement in his recent visit to Cebu, and specifically calling the colleges and universities here to lead in making technology-based courses enticing and interesting.

He said students should be well informed of the high potential of technologybased professions, such as the high demand for Robotics Process Automation, analytics and digital marketing expertise.

Increasing the pool of talents on these areas is crucial for the Philippines’ bid in becoming an innovation country.

Cebu for instance, which has huge potential to become a world renowned "Innovation Island," should be in the forefront on this move, he said.

Knowledge professionals such as the Robotics engineers, analytics degree holders, and professional digital marketers have huge potential to land in highpaying jobs these days.

These Knowledge Professionals, Ibrahim said are the next wave of in-demand talents by the world's tech companies and outsourcing.

At present, 700 thousand of the 1.14 million jobs in outsourcing is voicerelated services.

But, with the entry of Artificial Intelligence (AI), Robotics, among others, the voice services maybe affected and that the industry has to move up a notch higher in order to seize the opportunity for high-value jobs or what is called as the Knowledge Process Outsourcing (KPO) sector.