National IT-BPO career guidance fair from September 1-2

The 2-day National IT-BPO Career Guidance Fair is now underway at the BMICH ending today under the patronage of the Ministry of Education.

The main objective of this fair is to create a paradigm shift and change the mindset of both students and parents from traditional careers such as medicine, engineering to potential career options in the IT - BPO industry. “Annually 125,000 students pass out with A/L’s but only 14,500 of them qualify for university. Out of these 14,500 students only 2,800 enroll for IT related undergraduate programmes.

There is a talent pool of over 100,000 that is not harnessed and one of the objectives we are trying to achieve through this event, is to attract this talent pool into the burgeoning IT BPO Industry,” said Dr. Archana Arcot, Chairperson for the Career Guidance Fair and Vice President - Human Resources for WNS Global Services, Sri Lanka. According to the latest Sri Lankan ICT Workforce Survey, the IT work force in 2006 was estimated to be 30,120 and the Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) workforce to be between 6100. However, there is an additional requirement of 7,672 employees for the IT industry and 1000 – 2000 more for the BPO sector.

Other highlights of this fair are the Career Counseling Unit which would be manned by career counselors from the Ministry of Education and representatives from the industry.

The National IT-BPO Career Fair is supported by the Association of Computer Training Organizations (ACTOS), IT Enabled Services Association (ITESA), Software Exporters Associations (SEA), Sri Lanka Association for the Software Industry (SLASI), Sri Lanka Computer Vendor’s Association (SLCVA) and by all Government and Academic agencies.