This is from the Philippine Daily Inquirer. Cool news story on what Jollibee is doing to help education in the country. I’ve always admired Jollibee as a company, and this is one other reason to admire them even more.

Serving a Real Need
By Tina Arceo-Dumlao
Philippine Daily Inquirer
First Posted 21:48:00 05/21/2008

MANILA, Philippines–Local firms whine all the time about the difficulty of finding graduates with the skills needed to make their businesses grow.

Human resource experts say that most of the new entrants to the labor force either know too much of what companies don’t really need in their operations, or too little of the important stuff required by businesses to stay ahead of competition.

Recent graduates, for example, are lacking in oral and written English communication skills and have difficulty working well within a team.

Jollibee Foods Corp., the country’s largest fast-food chain, can only agree. But instead of just complaining about the jobs-skills mismatch, Jollibee, through the Jollibee Foundation, decided to do something about it by helping universities offering degrees in hotel and restaurant management formulate a curriculum and training program relevant to the needs of the growing quick-service and restaurant industries.

Initial efforts involved refining the on-the-job training of HRM students to make sure they make the most of their 100 or so hours of training and get a real feel of the industry they may want to work in when they graduate.

Jollibee Foundation president Grace Tan Caktiong said the company started discussing plans to improve the OJT program with the Commission on Higher Education as early as December last year.

Tan Caktiong expressed confidence that more companies in the food service industry would join the group as they all face the problem of finding the right people for the job.

“The current HRM curriculum is geared mainly toward the hotel industry, not food service, that is why we have to spend a lot on training graduates when they start working with us,” she said.

With the improved training program in place, it is hoped that the industry would have a rich pool of graduates with supervisory and managerial skills needed in the food service industry.

She said the group was collaborating with CHEd, specifically the technical panel for business education led by Dr. Oscar Torralba, and the universities to update their curriculum and orient the faculty.

Jollibee is also investing in another effort called Project Access, Curriculum and Employability (ACE), to help deserving high school graduates get an Associate Degree in Hotel and Restaurant Service.

Jollibee Foundation executive director Gisela Tiongson-Velasco said Project ACE was part of a ladderized education program wherein graduates could pursue further studies and get a Bachelors degree in Hotel and Restaurant Management.

“In-store training in Jollibee stores will be made available to the scholars to enhance their knowledge and skills,” Velasco said. “They will also receive training allowance to help cover other expenses.”

Project ACE will also cover leadership training, syllabus enhancement, faculty development and job placement assistance.

Tan Caktiong stressed that scholars were under no obligation to work for Jollibee after completing the two-year associate degree as the foundation believed in giving its scholars freedom of choice.

Helping Jollibee in Project ACE are Cavite State University, Chiang Kai Shek College, University of Makati and Western Mindanao State University.

Contributing to the improvement of the educational system is one of the two main thrusts that Jollibee Foundation had decided to adopt. The other involves agricultural development in partnership with the Catholic Relief Services and the National Livelihood Development Corp.

The Pilot Agri Development Project involves encouraging farmers to provide Jollibee with the produce it needs for its meals.

Areas covered by the program were San Isidro and San Jose in Nueva Ecija for white onions; Santa Fe, Nueva Vizcaya for carrots and bell pepper; Lantapan and Impasugong in Bukidnon for carrots and onion and Siay, Zamboanga Sibugay, for calamansi.

Tan Caktiong said Jollibee deemed it proper to concentrate resources on these two pursuits as these have a direct impact on its operations.

Copyright 2008 Philippine Daily Inquirer. All rights reserved.