Filipino groups brush up computer skills

Filipino groups in Abu Dhabi and Dubai held separate activities Friday in pursuit of a common goal - brushing up their computer skills.

In Abu Dhabi, more than 170 successful trainees who completed the three-month Basic Computer Course obtained their certificates in a four-hour ceremony held at the Crown Plaza Hotel.

The course was organised by the Philippine Overseas Labour Office under the Philippine Embassy in the capital. The graduates were members of the seventh batch composed mostly of Filipino nurses, sales ladies, domestic helpers and those belonging to other professions who want to sharpen their computer skills.

A handful of graduates came from Al Ain and Ruwais, according to Tony Daldo, president of the Overseas Filipino Computer Club (OFCC), the training arm of the Philippine mission in Abu Dhabi.

The classes, conducted by volunteer trainers at the Overseas Workers Resource Centre with a mini computer lab at the embassy, are free of charge, except for a registration fee that covers instruction materials.

"There's an insatiable hunger for basic computer knowledge among the community members here," said Daldo. "Some of our students don't mind standing in class for two hours."

On the software side, the course covered personal productivity software applications from wordprocessing, spreadsheet, presentation and database. Hardware lessons involved PC assembly, troubleshooting and repair.

"There are some things that are easy to do, but if you don't know a thing about it, you'll be intimidated. Through these courses, our students enjoy acquiring new knowledge because it is be useful to them," said Daldo.

Graduates of early batches of OFCC helped conduct classes for the later batches according to an OWWA-approved syllabus designed by the club.

Daldo said his group also plans to offer a two-month web design session alongside the other existing seminars to the next batch, tentatively scheduled in early March.

Meanwhile, a group of Filipino IT professionals in Dubai and the Northern Emirates gathered for a lecture on Terminal Control Protocol/Internet Protocol (TCP/IP). That was the first in a string of refresher courses held at the Philippines Labour Office here.

The four-hour review session, an overview of the core subjects in IT certification tests, was given to trainers and graduates of the networking classes organised by the Filipino Association for Computer Excellence (FACE).

Some 80 participants took part in the technical seminar, said Ed Ferrer, the group's president.

The session was divided into two parts. Ferrer, a Microsoft Certified Service Engineer (MCSE), delivered a lecture TCP/IP history, architecture and utilities. Joel Ruello, also an MCSE and Cisco Certified Network Associate (CCNA), handled the subject on 'sub-netting'.

There are only about 400,000 MCSEs in the world, of which six are FACE members. Last year, five of its members also passed the CompTIA and Network+ certification exams.

FACE, one of the most active Filipino professional groups in Dubai, spearheads free computer training courses in three of the UAE's seven emirates as part of the education outreach programme of the Philippine diplomatic mission.