| |
e4e
Launched at the HRCC
By
Paul Catiang
On March 6, 2006, at the HRCC’s Richmonde Hotel meeting,
the English for Employment was presented as a means of raising
the level of oral English proficiency in order to supply a steady
stream of proficient English speakers for the BPO industry. Corollary
to this, the program also aims to educate the public about the
call center industry and the ITES industry.
The
program began by comparing the assessment tools of John Clements,
Teledevelopment Services, FuturePerfect, Asia Partnership and
Viventis for purposes of benchmarking. Once the companies involved
concluded that their methodologies had their individual merits
and could not be combined, they moved on to agree on four initiatives,
namely: to pilot a 100-hour program in selected colleges and universities;
to develop a certification process to pre-qualify vendors to teach
English programs; to develop and roll out a Train the Teachers
program; and to work with the Hong Kong Polytechnic University
to obtain an agreement from the Education and Manpower branch
in Hong Kong to use their 150-hour program for primary and secondary
teachers.
The
100-hour Pilot Program involves four hours of training a day for
25 days. This will be conducted in three schools with two classes
per school, with 20 students per class, totaling 120 students
for the pilot program. The curriculum includes grammar, accent,
fluency, interactive ability, and vocabulary, with the pilot classes
being conducted by John Clements, Teledevelopment Services and
FuturePerfect.
To
qualify, students must have a desire to work in the BPO industry,
and must be fluent and accurate speakers of English, rated a 3
on the e4e scale, having the skills of a near-hire candidate.
They must be outgoing and confident, and must be ranked among
the top 25 percent of their graduating classes. Finally, they
must be willing to commit 100 hours of class time plus homework,
which spans three to five weeks. The targeted student population
will hail from courses such as mass communication, business administration,
and psychology, although interested students from other courses
will also be welcome.
English
for Employment is set to launch its pilot program in the middle
of April, 2006.
|
|
