For the purpose of facilitating job search for would-be graduates, British Telecom will provide training courses in business skills development and business English instruction in the framework of an agreement signed in the presence of His Excellency, Ambassador Iain Lindsay OBE, in Kölcsey Központ [Kölcsey Cultural Canter] on Monday. A leading company in the Hungarian SSC (shared service center) sector, BT has 500 employees in its Debrecen office currently, but this figure is planned to expand by an annual 100 new employees in the next couple of years, for which effort it will need to find appropriately skilled workforce,” said Zoltán Szabó, CEO of BT ROC Kft.
“A key to increasing economic performance is well-skilled workforce with a good command of several languages. In order to be able to supply competitive skills required by multinational companies, it seems essential for us to invest in education,” said Iain Lindsay, the Ambassador of Great Britain to Hungary, who also recalled in his address that he had taken a Hungarian course at Debrecen Summer School this past spring.
Mayor László Papp believes that the projected expansion of the headcount announced at the meeting constitutes a clear-cut indication and feedback to the city of Debrecen about how British Telecom has long-term plans here and how these plans comply with the strategic objectives identified and set for Debrecen.
“With this development, BT contributes to building a better future for Debrecen, since each and every college and university graduate represents a building block in our effort of reaching the population figure of 250 thousand by the year 2050,” said László Papp, who also added that, according to the latest plans, the number of participants in secondary level vocational training would be increased by 20 or 30 percent in the next few years and a significant expansion in the student numbers as well as the infrastructural facilities at the university level would also be generously supported.
“This agreement, in which the largest university in Hungary joins forces with one of the leading multinational corporations of the world in the second largest city in the nation represents one of the highest levels of thinking and planning together. In the field of quality development in telecommunication, information science and technology, and service providing, the University of Debrecen is going to be a reliable partner for British Telecom and the city of Debrecen,” said Rector Zoltán Szilvássy, who also reflected on the words of the Mayor by adding that he hoped that one-fifth of the population of 250 thousand, made up by 50 thousand students, will go to the university in a few decades.
On the subject matter of educational cooperation, Rector Szilvássy said that it was not just about simple computer use but really high added value performance and, as expected by the university, also about joint research and development projects.
“A company gets organically rooted in an environment when, beyond the simple tasks of assembling parts and packaging them, it also takes care of creating added value on the spot, to which the University of Debrecen is ready and willing to contribute by doing its best to provide the appropriately skilled human resources,” said the Rector.
Regarding corporate social responsibility, it was announced at the event that, in the future, BT would be ready to sponsor the university club DEAC, in return for which the soccer team of the sports club would feature the corporate logo of the company on the team jerseys.
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