TODAY’s digitization of local enterprises demands for more network-security professionals, but there is a shortage owing to the failure of the educational system to prepare for this need.
“We believe that the Philippines, as an emerging market, has seen tremendous growth, particularly in the manufacturing and services sector. As businesses adapt to the latest in cloud, mobility, virtualization and big data, there is a growing demand for network-security professionals who can deal with the challenges in the evolving technology landscape,” said Amar Mehta Sr., head of Cyberoam Asia Pacific.
“The present educational setups in most emerging economies, like the Philippines, are not ready to meet this demand and, hence, we have seen a high uptake of our training certifications here in the Philippines,” he added.
While it seems to be a concern nowadays, this is not an isolated case locally, for it is widely spread globally, as well.
A 2015 Frost & Sullivan study showed that 62 percent of respondents worldwide stated that their organizations have “too few” information-security professionals.
According to 14,000 respondents, an insufficient pool of suitable security candidates is causing this widening skills gap.
If not addressed, the report estimates the shortfall in the global-information-security work force to reach 1.5 million in five years.
To help cope up with this, Cyberoam has been bridging the missing link of education, career and industry on this matter by way of providing courses related to network security.
In the Philippines it has been offering Cyberoam Certified Network Security Professionals and Cyberoam Certified Network Security Experts programs since 2008.
These include rigorous practical training modules and interactive sessions—all designed to meet the current network-security industry requirements.
To date, more than 15,000 Cyberoam certified network-security professionals and engineers have been produced internationally.
In the Asia-Pacific region Mehta said that “the Philippines has the second-highest number of Cyberoam-certified professionals,” next only to Thailand.
With its local partner NetPlay Inc., the American company has been holding network-security trainings in selected centers in Manila and Cebu.
Although majority of the Cyberoam-certified professionals are now employed as information-technology (IT) consultants, and network and firewall administrators in different sectors, more programs are needed to supply the current demand for skilled workers.
It is for this reason that a free short course is being offered under its training arm—the Cyberoam Academy.
“Because the demand for network-security skills in the Philippines is much higher than the supply, we want to close this gap through the Cyberoam Academy,” said Ajay Nawani, chief of Cyberoam Academy. “This would entail, though, a major contribution from the local educational institutions.”
The institution recently opened its partnership program for universities and colleges in the Philippines to offer the short network-security course, called Novice to Professional, free of charge.
For 56 hours, this training program will provide high-quality cybersecurity training for Filipino students.
“Once we have more Cyberoam Academy university partners, we can offer our free network-security courses to more Filipino students. This means we can produce more network-security professionals and experts that we hope can augment the current skills demand of the Philippines’s evolving IT security landscape,” Nawani said.