Comment:
Reforms in education to boost BPO industry
The Government has declared the week October 9-15 as the 'National
Information and Communications Technology (ICT) Week, thus emphasizing
the Government's commitment towards ICT.
The main highlight of the 'Week' is Business Process Outsourcing (BPO).
BPO market is growing at a rapid rate globally. Though it is an infant
industry to us BPOs started in the late 1980s. BPO is a knowledge
business. The essential ingredient of the industry is skilled manpower.
Knowledge is the capital as well as the inputs of the most of the
high end BPO businesses. The BPO business range from call centres to
software development. According to experts in the future anything that
can be digitised will be outsourced to developing countries by developed
countries. But all developing countries will not be able to attract BPO,
because the country should be able to provide the outsourced service at
the same quality the source country provides.
To sustain growth of BPOs in Sri Lanka all stakeholders should
identify plus and minus points the country has. First the country should
have knowledge, the human capital. Our universities emit thousands of
graduates in various professions every year.
They are dumped into the already over-crowded State sector after
several years of unemployment. Thousands of young people with university
entrance qualifications, several times higher than the number who enter
universities, are idling.
They do not fit into the existing labour market demand in
manufacturing and agricultural sectors. Both categories of this educated
people do not match with what the BPO industry requires because of the
poor English language proficiency that almost all BPO companies are
highly concerned about.
Quality and quantity of graduates passing out from universities and
technical institutions have to improve to meet the BPO industry demand.
The first solid step the country needs is change this education that
produce a defective output.
It needs reforming the present education system, this does not mean
simply privatising the education system but let private capital come
into the education system, private-private collaboration in the
university system as well as increasing government expenditure on
education.
Higher general literacy rate alone will not fulfil the manpower
demand by the BPO industry but it is the greatest advantage the country
has over almost all developing countries.
To understand how this should be done we have to turn to India. Today
India has gained from the education system they started just after the
independence. In 1951 Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru set up India's
first seven Indian Institutes of Technology (IIT).
Later their private sector equivalents and six Indian Institutes of
Management were set up. Today India's capital of the BPO business is the
graduates passed out from these institutes during the last 55 years.
Early generations of graduates of these institutes catered to the
demand in the developed countries, mainly US. Those expatriate
professionals with vast experiences returned and started BPO business in
India to use the present output of these institutions. The English
proficiency of Indian graduates is the other advantage the country has.
High literacy rate, tech savvy young people and people not second to
none be it education or inventions are plus points we have. But
something is lacking very seriously. That is unity. We should all unite
be it the government, private sector, industry, associations, chambers
must come together to formulate policy and act on it before it is too
late as there is huge potential for us to tap.
In addition the country needs timely infrastructure such as low cost
power, telecommunication facilities and office space to gain a sizable
share of this market. As suggested the country could have BPO zones as
done in Bangalore where the government supplies the infrastructure while
the investors set up companies according to their requirement.
According to a survey carried out by ICTA the BPO industry in the
country is not growing at the rate it was expected to grow. Investment
flows into the sector have been relatively regular since 2000 and the
inflow is a mix of foreign investments, local investments and joint
ventures.
According to the survey eight companies have entered the BPO business
last year but only one company has entered the industry this year. Some
industry experts are optimistic of the future and predict that if Sri
Lanka can secure 1.0% of the international BPO market in the next two to
three years the country can earn US$ two billion by employing 200,000
staffers. To materialise this above issues have to be corrected quickly.
Increasing the e-literacy in the next essential requirement of the
country.
ICT should not be a privilege to a elite few. Government effort in
this regard is commendable.
"Nenasala" and 'Vidatha' regional computer centres provide IT
services at lower price for average people.
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