School to make South Road Properties attractive to workers: Tom

AN EDUCATIONAL facility planned for the South Road Properties (SRP) will help attract locators to the Cebu City project, Mayor Tomas Osmeña said yesterday.

Cebu City will donate five hectares of SRP land to the University of the Philippines Visayas College-Cebu for putting up a facility that will offer information technology and masteral degree courses.


Osmeña is scheduled to sign the deed of donation today.



Master’s degree

Once the facility is set up at the SRP, call center agents of companies in the SRP will be given the opportunity to finish a masters degree at a convenient location and schedule.

“If the call center agent will finish work at three o’ clock in the morning, then classes can start at 3:15 a.m. downstairs. They don’t have to go home to change,” Osmeña said.

The mayor said this will attract “bright employees” who are qualified to work in call centers but refuse to do so because they see it as a “dead-end job.”

“This is designed not to attract the call center locators but designed to get the good people to work there because, where good people are willing to work, we know the call center operators will follow,” Osmena said.

Osmeña said the City aims to create an environment where call center employees will not want to work anywhere else except in the SRP.

The mayor sees Cebu City producing at least 3,000 holders of masters degrees yearly.

He said he feels very strongly for the project since it will appeal to “many bright young minds.”

“In this phenomenon of globalization we have to be the first to adjust, we have to be the first to react,” he said.

Last night, Osmena hosted a cocktail party at the Casino Espanol for the business process outsour-cing (BPO) industry. It was attended by at least 70 representatives from BPOs and Cebu business groups.

Listening

The mayor assured investors he is listening to their concerns, like the need to improve the educational system through better ties with the industry.

Osmeña said that in order to address concerns on the small number of graduates equipped with minimum requirements to work in a call center, BPO companies should identify and quantify the problem.

He said they should tell the city what to do. (DME)