CALL CENTER PHILIPPINES

There are job fairs all over.  Every time you go to a mall you will see job fairs being advertised.  There are even instances when you can witness job applicants occupying a large portion of the mall to apply for jobs.  these are the common scenes you will see in the Philippines nowadays.

Joblessness have been the perennial problem in the Philippines for the longest time.  It is an encouraging scenario though where there are a lot of job openings where everyone can apply in the Philippines today.  Having a job is one of the greatest priorities anyone can ever  have while alive.  Having no job is likened to having no life at all.  You have to have a  job today so you can live.

But they say that jobless people are still so rampant today.  Despite all these job offers in the job fairs, people still couldn't get themselves a job.  Common reasons of course is that these applicants are not qualified for the job at hand.  

The common jobs that are offered are for business process outsourcing.    BPO works are the kind of jobs where it requires an applicant to be well verse in the English language.  In the past, the Philippines used to make English as one of the major languages used in schools until just recently.  Some patriotic legislators wanted Filipino language to be the primary teaching medium.  I remember when I was still a student, where we were asked to pay if we were caught speaking our dialect while inside the school premises. I never paid any since we were so careful not to speak at all if there are teachers around.  Just imagine how quiet our school was during that time.

In a way, teaching kids with the local dialect is far more beneficial to them than pushing it hard on them to speak a foreign language which is English.  Kids from affluent families though are used to speaking the English language since many of them speak it at home. But there are only a few of them and usually, the English that they use is the known "taglish" which is a combination of tagalog and English. 

There is indeed no sweeter pill in learning than to speak and listen with your own dialect.  I also recall when we were in college when Spanish was still a prerequisite in our curriculum, it was the hardest subject to pass;  the Pilipino subject was not that easy too, I admit.  I can attest that it will be difficult to learn anything from anyone, a teacher or your parent, when you are taught using English as medium.  There will always be a glitch somewhere where the child may miss a point and might fail to learn.  And worse is when the parent or teacher is not articulate enough to explain. But this is just a very temporary thing since kids can easily adapt to its environment, specially when the parent and teacher uses the English language often as they talk to the kid.  this is somehow getting the kid used to hearing and speaking the language like in a normal conversation.  Don't laugh at mistakes too....even if its you who commits one.

I am not an advocate of the English language.  I shun speaking English.  It is difficult to organize your thought in Filipino and speak it out in English specially if you're not used to it.  Upon facing reality, it seems that we have to work double time in coping up with the situation.  World's job opportunity has flattened, meaning everybody is given equal opprotunity in finding a job whether local or abroad. Opportunities abroad are now available to us.  This is primarily the reason why almost all the opportunities around are for bpo.  Which means a hired employee reports locally and yet his/her customers are someone from abroad.  Most bpo clients are from English speaking countries, and english is after all still the most used language the world over. It is good that we are still known to be an English speaking nation until now, but not for long if we don't make up.

The onset of information age has made communication easier.  the entry of internet communities, email and voip have made communicating to someone abroad a lot cheaper.  Our legislators foresight must have failed to anticipate such a scenario.  Had we maintained English as a secondary language in school, we would have a better advantage against our foreign bpo counterparts in India or Singapore and other Asian countries offering bpo.  

The bpo which is otherwise known to be call centers are hiring graduates with university degrees probably because they are the only ones who can speak better English.  But it would have been better if it were our high school graduates who were given these opportunities to work in the call centers had they been trained to speak English well.  Our degree holders would have been more productive in pursuing other opportunities and help improve the country by their university skills rather stickng their tongue 8 hours a day to help foreigners. Call center jobs are basically routinary where anyone who understands and speaks English well, who may have the ability to understand the functionality of the tools they use to support their customers, then are good for the call  center job.

Thanks for the call center though because it has provided jobs for the many who are languishing in joblessness.  But for those who think they can do more...then let them find something else. Leave the call center to high school graduates or graduates of vocational courses.