DAVAO CITY, Philippines -- Academic administrators are meeting with business process outsourcing (BPO) firms here this week to ensure a better match between local workforce training and the requirements of the global outsourcing industry.

The BPO Human Resource & Recruitment Forum, organized by ICT Davao, Inc., is the second in a series of events designed to accelerate the sustainable development of this city as the leading information, communication and technology (ICT) hub in Mindanao.

The forum will brief local academic institutions on trends in the BPO industry and provide benchmarks in English language capability and other skills. This will enable schools to improve their curricula and anticipate changes in the industry's workforce needs.

"BPOs are particularly interested in schools with a strong English-language focus throughout their entire academic program," said Joji Bian, president of JIB e-Academy and of the Philippine Call Center Alliance.

The forum will also be attended by industry representatives from the cities of General Santos and Zamboanga, which likewise have a significant number of schools offering BPO training.

These cities, as well as Iligan, Cotabato and Marawi, expect to benefit from the development of Davao as an entry point for BPO locators, according to USAID's Growth with Equity in Mindanao (GEM) Program, which, with the oversight of the Mindanao Economic Development Council, is helping to improve IT infrastructure and generate employment in the island-region.

XMG Asia Pacific, which analyses trends in the global BPO industry, has put Davao at par with other emerging alternative offshoring cities like Jakarta and Montevideo.

Davao's workforce is estimated to be almost double that of Cebu, which currently has the country's second largest concentration of BPO workers. Other Mindanao cities, such as Zamboanga and General Santos, have skilled labor pools similar in size to that of Cebu.