RP, Japan to jointly promote IT human resource dev’t

The Philippine and Japanese governments will collaborate in the Asia IT Initiative (AITI).

Trade and Industry Secretary Cesar V. Purisima and Japanese Minister of State for information technology Toshimitsu Motegi said their respective agencies will promote and support the IT human resource development as part of the AITI.

In a joint statement signed last Tuesday in Tokyo, Japan, the ministers confirmed the need to spur cooperation in the adoption and use of IT based on an equal partnership between Japan and the Philippines through collaboration among industry, educational sector and government.

"These programs fortify the relationship between the IT industries of the two countries as well as the future prosperity of both countries through the education and training of IT engineers and professionals with high level skills," the statement read.

Purisima noted that these programs are meant to promote economic growth in both countries by developing highly-skilled Filipino IT engineers and professionals who will undergo e-learning in a Japanese language environment.

Some of the programs lined up are IT personnel training at the University of the Philippines and the IT personnel training by the Japanese Information Technology Standards Examination of the Philippines (JITSE-Phils). These will be conducted in the Philippines while the Japanese government will provide equipment and dispatch its IT experts.

The other programs are IT engineer’s training, IT business traning, technology engineers examination and the business matching between Japan and the Philippines.