STI branches out to recruitment

The STI Education Services Group is completing its offering from education to employment through its affiliate recruitment agency Global Resource for Outsourced Workers (GROW) Inc.

From providing technology-based education, management and certification, STI has gone as step further and integrated its operations with a recruiting service.

GROW Inc., which was set-up two years ago to help place STI’s graduates, signed yesterday a multi-year agreement with Adventist Healthcare, Inc. (AHC) to provide a consistent, long-term supply of registered Filipino nurses for AHC’s demand at its large assortment of facilities in the United States.

According to Monico V. Jacob, chairman of GROW and concurrent president and chief executive officer of STI, STI offers a "value chain" with its technology-based education, management, certification and employment placement.

GROW’s tie-up with AHC offers more than just a recruiting service, but an integrated approach of ensuring a steady supply of qualified nursing professionals whose skills have been finely honed.

GROW and AHC are assisted in hurdling all requirements from education, certification, testing, qualifying, emigration, licensing and practice in the US as a registered nurse.

According to STI chairman Eusebio H. Tanco, with the advent of globalization and the World Trade Organization (WTO), the Philippines comparative advantage now remains only in the services sector.

As such, Tanco reiterated his call for the government to push for the liberalization of the services sector in the WTO negotiations. Tanco pointed out that the Philippines currently has the edge in providing educated and highly-skilled manpower resources and should, therefore, take the lead in pushing for more access for the services sector.

Tanco lauded overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) who have been instrumental in bringing in much needed foreign exchange.

Manpower development, Tanco said, could even the country’s sunrise industry, provided that more effort be exerted in providing quality education and training.