GAIN VP Ms. Grace Zata tells graduating students: With English and digital skills, you have a lot of opportunities

GAIN Vice President for Industry Linkages Ms. Grace Abella-Zata speaks at the Altruchack 2022:
​A Social Impact Hackathon organized by Adamson University in partnership with Accenture, PLC.

Ms. Grace Abella-Zata, GAIN Vice President for Industry Linkages, speaks at the Altruchack 2022: A Social Impact Hackathon organized by Adamson University in partnership with Accenture, PLC. The 3-week event is driven to solve the problems of marginalized communities specifically in the areas of healthcare and wellness, education, and skills development.
 
Discussing the topic "Skills Development as One of the Problems We Face Today", Ms. Zata brought her decades of industry experience to talk about skills development, particularly in English and Digital Competencies, that the Filipino talent needs to stand out in the global market pool.
 
Ms. Zata further emphasized that skills development should be anchored on the opportunities that arise from the industries with biggest opportunities such as Information Technology, Healthcare, and Tourism sectors.
 
Encouraging incoming graduates, she stressed that one of the biggest opportunities for fresh graduates to land good-paying jobs comes from the acceleration of the globalization of work. In addition to outsourcing work to the BPOs and KPOs, international companies are also directly hiring Filipino professionals through freelance arrangements or as regular employees.
 
“There will be more opportunities for Filipinos with good English and digital skills,” Ms. Abella-Zata promises, explaining why GAIN advocates the adoption of CEFR and DigComp so the Philippines will have a global standard for measuring English and digital competency skills. “What gets measured gets done,” Ms. Zata concludes, challenging the student population to help young people  from the D and E economic sectors to similarly acquire the skills that can provide pathways to a better life.