Tim G. Lovell and Dr. Robert Jackson, School of Accountancy and Information Systems
Trade schools owned and operated by members of the church and organized for the intent to train return missionaries are becoming increasingly common in developing countries. One such school Fundet, located in Guatemala, boasts a student body representative of all Central America. Fundet offers six majors including its most popular in computer skills. As a technical school, Fundet focuses on teaching readily applicable skills that will allow alumni to secure employment in their field immediately after graduation.
The obvious challenge for the computer curriculum is not only what skills to focus on (such as web development, programming, database management, networking, hardware, etc) but also what programming languages and development tools will best prepare Fundet graduates for employment or entrepreneurship. For most trade schools the answer can easily be found by looking to industry in the local area. Fundet; however, with its international student body, needs to look at the collective needs of all Central America.
When I initially proposed the research I didn’t know how I could gather data from such a wide, diverse, and inconvenient geographic area. I played with the idea of using a network of church leaders to find contact information for various companies and universities. While doing so may have been fruitful and created a comprehensive list of informants, I fe lt it would be an abuse of church ties. Once I arrived in Guatemala I also realized that calling between countries would be very expensive.
Another idea I considered was personally traveling to the different areas and making cold calls on companies found in the local yellow pages. While this would be less intrusive, it wouldn’t be any cheaper, nor would I have the time to leave the school and travel for so much time during the summer.
I finally found an idea that circumvented the time and money issue and at the same time would provide Fundet students the perfect opportunity to build networks in their hometowns. I prepared a written questionnaire and then trained my computer students on how to approach businesses and gather the information needed for the research. I asked the students to fill out several questionnaires for the area where they lived when they graduated in mid-December and returned to their hometowns in Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, and Nicaragua.
One problem presented by this method is the reliability and timeliness of the students in delivering the questionnaires. Since I have only received a minority of the questionnaires thus far, the results I will discuss are not conclusive. Another risk taken by this approach is that students will select companies based on skill set matches. Should this occur, results will be skewed to show favoritism to skills and languages taught at Fundet. The questionnaire itself was prepared with objective questions and attained the desired results.
The questionnaire asked about the number of various job descriptions employed by the company and the difficulty in filling each position. It also asked what programming languages, development tools and databases the company used and which they considered most important. Surveys show that the most demanded computer skills include database administration, network administration and programming. Least important skills include graphic and web design. The greatest number of job opportunities with surveyed companies is in database administration, hardware maintenance and programming.
Since residential Internet availability and usage is still minimal in Central America and ebusiness is yet in it’s infancy, it came as no surprise that web development ranked low in demand. Companies that do develop for Internet ranked ASP as the most common web development environment followed by Perl.
Companies ranked VisualBasic as the most important and most commonly used development language. Other languages are listed in order of importance: VisualFox Pro, Developer 2000 SQL, Pascal, C++ and Java. Oracle and Access rated highest for database use. The results do show that the skills taught at Fundet are demanded and commonly used in Central America. While the skills taught depend somewhat on the background of BYU students who come and teach at the school, there are core skills taught by local professionals which include programming training in VisualBasic, networking, computer maintenance and general computer operation. The additional skills taught by BYU students this past year include Access, ASP, SQL, Java, web development and database design.
When more questionnaires are available and analysis more complete, the research will help Fundet’s computer faculty and administration to select the most important skills and tools to include in its twelve month curriculum. Graduate job placement is Fundet’s primary focus and curriculum grading tool. Improved placement will improve Fundet’s image and visibility to potential students and of course helping the graduates and the church. By providing students the most demanded skills and most popular tools, Fundet will help return missionaries remain hopeful, active and productive.