By Bong Pedalino

MAASIN CITY (31 August) -- To those who dream of becoming call center agents one day, this is for you.

The provincial office of Technical Education Skills and Development Authority (TESDA), based in this city, is still accepting interested individuals for the pre-training assessment scholarship program, which is designed for call center job postings.

In an interview, TESDA provincial director Rolando Juanillo said there was no quota set so far as to the maximum number of applicants to be accommodated and accepted for this special initiative.

Those who would like to try were advised to visit the TESDA office at the capitol, grounds any day of the week during office hours, 8:00-12:00 noon, 1:00-5:00 in the afternoon, Mondays through Fridays.

Early this month, August, the first batch of 72 examinees from various places of the province took the 7-minute telephone conversation test, and out of that number, 19 qualified for the scholarship, while three others were rated capable already to be hired.

Juanillo said that this week, for the second batch starting Monday, August 28, a total of 82 individuals took the qualifying skills exam, 24 passed, and 8 were certified as hirable, or ready to be employed in a call center company.

The 19 and 24 who passed for the first and second batches, respectively, were now enjoying TESDA's scholarship fund of P5,000.00 per person for the 100 hours call center finishing course, and they were enrolled at the Call Center Academy of St. Joseph College.

Juanillo also said that in the coming weeks, their office will be conducting a pre-training assessment for medical transcriptionists, although at the moment the only constraint is where to train applicants who would qualify.

Meanwhile, TESDA announced in a statement that starting the month of September, 2006, "a certification fee of P100.00 shall be paid by each candidate upon the issuance of the National Certificate of Competency."