KINGSTON, Jamaica — Three hundred students from across the country are to participate in the Youth Engagement Summit of the Business Process Industry Association of Jamaica (BPIAJ) Outsource2Jamaica (O2J) Symposium and Expo.

The two-day symposium and expo will be held at the Montego Bay Convention Centre, in St James, from April 11 to 12, with the Summit taking place on the second day.

President of the BPIAJ, Gloria Henry, told JIS News that the Summit, which is being put on in partnership with Caribbean HR Solutions, will include presentations, live shows and testimonials for the invited students.

“We have a number of persons who will be giving testimonials. These are persons with tenure within the sector. They will be speaking about their experience, their transition and their growth and development,” Henry noted.

The business process outsourcing sector has grown since 2003 and has an employee count of approximately 36,000 in 60 companies as at December 2018, particularly young persons.

“This industry really provides an opportunity to learn and for persons to grow. It takes persons coming straight out of high school once they have the right attributes. They go through orientation and training and they get the opportunity to be promoted. Most companies will reimburse, if they don’t cover direct cost, for furthering your studies. There is also a wide variety of internal training opportunities for persons to train across different types of business line and services,” Henry explained.

In keeping with the growth trend and industry demands, the BPIAJ has embarked on preparing industry specific educational certification through partnerships with a number of  training institutions.

“We do have companies who are asking for higher level degrees and certification. We have had several engagements with the Ministry of Education, Youth and Information and the Centre for Occupational Studies for developing a curriculum for a Bachelor’s Degree in Business Process Management (BPM). With the Portmore Community College, we launched a Bachelors in BPM two years ago, and that is being implemented through Sutherland Global Services, where the final leg of [the programme] is completed on the job,” Henry said.

The Ministry of Education, Youth and Information had already implemented an Associate Degree in Occupational Studies, with two key programme areas being business process outsourcing (BPO) and knowledge process outsourcing.                 

—JIS