OPPORTUNITIES await Cebuano students as the University of Cebu (UC) inked a deal with a Singapore-based institution that will allow students to earn and learn at the same time.UC president Augusto Go, a lawyer, led the signing of the Memorandum of Agreement (MOA) with EduCLaaS Singapore in UC Banilad, Cebu City on Tuesday, April 5, 2022.EduCLaaS is a digital learning and talents platform that delivers competency learning as a service to support work integrated learning and digital solutions implementation.Joel Chow, EduCLaaS managing director for International Business, said through the program, students will have the chance to work as an apprentice and be immersed in the industry related to their degree program.During the first year, the students will be enrolled in a bootcamp for a full-time lecture and study before fielding them to different industries, said Chow.EduCLaaS Local Partners president Vicente Pijano III said after the freshmen years of the students, they will then go through an application process and get matched to companies based in Singapore or other foreign countries that will serve as their employers during their apprenticeship years.During their stint as apprentice, the students will already receive salaries from their employer and are already qualified for career planning, performance evaluation, promotion and salary increment.A student can expect to earn up to US$16,200 during a three-year apprenticeship. During the second year in the apprenticeship program, the student gets paid up to $300 a month; $450 a month in third year; and $600 a month in fourth year.Another advantage of the program is that by the time they graduate in the four-year program, the students have already acquired three years of relevant experience, said Pijano.Pijano said this program will solve the country’s “industry-academe gap” where the academe is producing students “who are not really ready to work for the companies by the time they graduate.”“We are not teaching them the tools of the trade. We are teaching them with the theories and the application but not the one that are currently used by industries but rather what we are teaching them are older technologies or the principles behind it,” Pijano added.UC vice chancellor Ofelia Maña said they are planning to offer the program by the start of the school year 2022-2023.Maña added that right after the signing of the MOA, the university’s administration and teaching staff will begin crafting the curriculum design and mapping.According to Maña, UC will be offering a bachelor’s degree for software engineering, digital business and system administration for students wanting to join the program.Maña also clarified that the program is also open to senior high school students from different colleges and universities for as long as they will qualify the academic requirements set by UC.High demandBy the next eight years, Chow said 100 million jobs will be created around the world because of digital transformation.Chow added that in Singapore alone, they will be needing at least 1.2 million “digital graduates” by the year 2025 but they can only produce one percent of this.The remaining 1.1 million of these graduates need to be produced by the neighboring countries of Singapore like the Philippines, said Chow.According to Chow, the Philippines has a huge potential since it is one of the most populated education countries in the region and receives heavy investments in business process management and knowledge process outsourcing industries.After graduation, Chow said the students are not bonded to their employers or to EduCLaaS but they have the liberty to choose their next career path.