Dear all, Sorry to catch up late on this. Been offline abit. If this perhaps has been addressed, apologies for repetition, but I suppose from the discussions aforegoing, and in order now to move forward, I suggest we formulate a comprehensive National BPO taskforce to give direction and come up with a methodology of harnessing the expertise we have in place already, and inventorize it.At the same time also come up with a strategy of developing and creating new potential within the value chain. Talent & expertise should be developed from an early age, and the place to start is our primary education institutions. Can we determinedly,albeit step by step in conjunction with the Ministry of Education, Science and Technology to start reworking on our curriculum in centres of learning starting from the lower going up and make it more relevant in this time and age. You would agree with me, at some point each one of us back then did a lot of course subjects that are not in any way relevant to what you and me are doing now. How about narrowing down to specific area of concentration in study as one progresses up leading to specialization in career later. This would also help change a mindset that has existed for along time, where each of us only looked forward to being hired into a job. Period! Now this would change as skill sets are developed early on and learners exposed to opportunities and encouraged into entrepreneurship upon graduating. I feel Vision 2030 should encompass this approach to things. Development of potential, ultimately. Starting now.. Harry -----Original Message----- From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Edith Adera Sent: Monday, June 08, 2009 9:11 PM To: [email protected] Cc: [email protected] Subject: Re: [kictanet] Day 5 of 10- BPO Discussions, HR Issues Dear Listers, Me thinks that not only should there be a register of the skills available, but it would have been nice for the research to provide deeper insights on type of skills and preferences for on-shore vs off-shore jobs - this would allow for a better assessment of skill gaps (vis a vis the target market) and to strategise accordingly by targeting markets where one has comparative advantage while working long-term in filling the skills gap to pursue harder markets to reach. Vision 2030 is 21 years away....this also has implications for what we do with the children joining nursery school today! Can we have short term and long-term plans that strive to quickly upgrade skills of young people joining the workforce (short-term: hence relevance of multi-media university) while institutionalizing science learning in the long-term at the start of school? This could be achieved through multi-media science teaching from an early age (nursery). Research has proven that multimedia curriculum content greatly enhances teaching and learning (and improves comprehension and maintains interests in subjects that may otherwise be boring e.g. science). Edith -----Original Message----- From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Walubengo J Sent: 08 June 2009 08:06 To: Edith Adera Cc: [email protected] Subject: [kictanet] Day 5 of 10- BPO Discussions, HR Issues t -Day 5 of 10- BPO Discussions, Human Capacity Issues Morning all, I trust you had a refreshing weekend. Today I want to introduce the theme on Human Resource Development for the BPO industry. The Researchers found that India, S.Africa and Mauritius had a comprehensive inventory of their skill-base that was also available for Validation by prospective employers and investors. Another observation was ofcourse the sheer numbers of Indian graduates (millions) that made it the largest base of highly skilled pool of graduates with strong mathematical/scientific orientation. Whereas, Mauritius was producing only 10,000 (university) graduates per year compared to Kenya's 30,000 per year, Mauritius had the advantage of properly documenting their national graduates database and marketing it appropriately to potential clients in Europe/America. In addition, the Researchers noted that Mauritius had a government funded but Private-Sector oriented ICT Academy that produced graduates specificially for the ICT industry. In Kenya, the Researchers observed that apart from the lack of a national database on the available skills/graduates, some of the BPO operators were engaged in vicious poaching cycles where Agents trained in-house by one Operater are immediately hired by the Competing Operators. It was noted, that an attempt has been made by the .KE Government to create an Industry-specific University (Multimedia University College of Kenya) to address the HR gap but its success or otherwise will remain to be seen in a few years time. The Researchers also noted that Kenya's English-speaking labor force had an edge over the Indian one given that the average Kenyan had a "neutral" accent unlike the Indian graduate who tended to have an "ethnic" accent that often distracted the Euro-American markets/clients. But this advantage is yet to be exploited - even as the Indians move up the BPO value chain and concentrate on non-accent related processes such as Software Engineering, Research (Financial, Medicine, etc), Product (e.g. Civil and Architectural) Design amongst others. Which leads us to todays questions. Qtn 7: How do we develop a national database on the wide-range of available ICT skill in Kenya - specifically which institution should be mandated to realise this, ensuring that such a database is kept upto date over the years? Qtn 8: What strategies should the country adopt to ensure a continuous supply of relevant and timely BPO-Specific skills? Please, lets have your comments flowing,dig yahjwalu starting now... walu. Encl: Synthesis 3 - HR Issues _______________________________________________ kictanet mailing list [email protected] http://lists.kictanet.or.ke/mailman/listinfo/kictanet This message was sent to: [email protected] Unsubscribe or change your options at http://lists.kictanet.or.ke/mailman/options/kictanet/harry%40inds.co.ke