[kictanet] Day 5 of 10- BPO Discussions, HR Issues

Mon Jun 8 15:13:47 EAT 2009

Tim et. al,

If I am not wrong there have been attempts to find a way to develop a skills
inventory in Kenya especially of IT or IT-related graduates. I do believe CFSK
conducted a study a few years back, am not sure what became of the study. There
were also attempts by others to develop such a database but some were curtailed
due to lack of funding or good-will....if some of you are out here in
cyberspace kindly do share so we build on what you have done and do not
reinvent the wheel. 

Walu, you may remember some of the round-tables we were involved in some years
ago. What we realized immediately is that the universities did not even know
where their graduates were, they did not have an active alumni network to help
them identify the sectors that were absorbing their graduates and where the
gaps were as this could inform curriculum review. I know it is a long shot to expect the universities to do this but I think it would help if specific departments tried to collate this information. If the potential graduates knew it would be beneficial for them to share that information once they graduate then it may ease the process. Beneficial in two ways, to help with curriculum review and place share their names and details with those looking for the relevant skills....ok am waffling I know. I think the team was on to
something there but we kind of dwelt too much on the successful South African
model where they did an excellent study titled the SAITIS study as far back as 1998
and I think updated the study and implementation around 2004 or so, I can't
remember off the top of my head. I know that relevant institutions came
together to share their expertise in the study so that it was representative
and collaborative.

The studies basically covered a number of issues including the national IT
Education and Training intiatives in SA (including schools, tertiary
institutions, government and private sector iniatives. It attempted to categorize jobs and skills in the IT industry and looked at it in the context of global trends. There are similar studies elsewhere but I thought I  may highlight on this one as I read about it years ago.

Best,

Nyaki

________________________________
From: Mwololo Tim <timwololo at gmail.com>
To: elizaslider at yahoo.com
Cc: kictanet at lists.kictanet.or.ke
Sent: Monday, June 8, 2009 1:47:11 PM
Subject: Re: [kictanet] Day 5 of 10- BPO Discussions, HR Issues

Bwana Ndemo,

These are good initiatives. However, I believe we need to look at the total secondary and tertiary education system to make sure it produces the skill sets we require for the BPO&O sector, depending on the strategy we take as a country. One university college, which is new and still struggling to "stand up", so to speak, will not do. Of course we need the skills inventory you talk about to know where we are so that we can take an appropriate strategy for skills development. I know KNBS is currently very busy focusing on the census and I am not sure they have adequate capacity to push several large projects simultaneously, which may mean delays here. We might therefore need to find ways of expediting this exercise. 

tim

On Mon, Jun 8, 2009 at 1:31 PM, <bitange at jambo.co.ke> wrote:

Walubengo,
With respect to capacity building, the Government has done the following
Established Multimedia University to focus on IT Skills Development;
Contracted the Central Bureau of Statistics through CCK to conduct ICT
Skills inventory in Kenya and Set up a task force to look into Skills
development as recommended by MaKinsey in the just concluded Value
Proposition.  We are in the process of appointing other stakeholders into
the committee.

Although we do not have a sector strategy on Capacity building, the
Governemnt takes issues of skills development very seriously. This is a
matter that NESC emphasizes as key to our competitiveness.  In this regard
we look forward to a quick finalization of the skills inventory and the
task force recommendation.

Regards

Ndemo.

> -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
%3

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