As the Cebu City government plans to implement a separate English class in public high schools next year, the Cebu City will be in the ninth spot in the list of top 10 emerged business process outsourcing (BPO) destinations in the world. Cities of Bangalore, Mumbai and Delhi in India are the top three sites. With this, students will be prepared in their call centers career.

According to Vice Mayor Joy Augustus Young, the city will allot at least P2 million for English program that will tackle conversational speech and other parts of language. Tholons, an international outsourcing and investment advisory firm, made the ranking.

The English subjects of the Department of Education focus on grammar. The separate English program of the city will be concentrating on English as a conversational language to prepare students to enter the BPO world, Young told Cebu Daily News.

The English class will be done daily after the regular classes of first year high school students. It will happen from 4:30-5:30 p.m. and will be offered as an elective subject. Training from leading BPO companies in Cebu City will be provided to public school English teachers and the city government will be paying the training and trainers' honoraria. One of the barriers in the BPO industry in Cebu City is the lack of capable applicants for call center companies. Applicants who were accepted will still have to undergo speech training before they will be hired by the company.

According to Joel Mari Yu, managing director of the Cebu Investments and Promotions Center (CIPC), Cebu City has moved up to the category of "emerged BPO destination" in the ranking of global sites for BPO and information technology. [via globalnation.inquirer.net]