There is at least one certainty: there are lots of opportunities in the Information and Communi-cation Technologies (ICT) sector. The great number of stands specialising in training and recruitment at the Infotech fair is a proof that young people are offered a wide range of possibilities. And quite a number of them have travelled to Swami Vivekananda international convention centre in Pailles on the opening day to get more information on the recruiting opportunities.

Sundeep and Yashvin are both students at the University of Mauritius. As they will finish their courses next year in the IT sector, they came at Infotech to see ?what could be offered to them?. Irregular hours, which are often mentioned as a reason for keeping away from this promising sector, does not seem to be a problem for them. ?You can have irregular hours in any field now. Every job demands sacrifice and we are ready to venture out in that sector?, comments Sundeep.

If recruitment may have been a problem before, recruiting companies are quite satisfied with the response they have had since the Infotech fair opened to the public yesterday morning. ?We have had quite a high number of visitors since this morning ? either students who have just finished school or university or working people. They have all shown an interest in the jobs we could offer them,? reveals Astride Rouget from Orange Communications. ?If a few girls mentioned the irregular hours as an issue, they are still a minority compared to the overall number of people. There is a still a mindset for some parents that their daughters can?t work long hours and during weekends,? she adds.

But most visitors appear to be more like Sundeep and Yashvin. ?This is probably due to the fact that people coming to Infotech are already prepared for that. They know they may be asked to work irregular hours,? says the employer of a call centre.

<B>Main focus: training</B>

However, they appear to have other fears, according to Denis Gourdin, in charge of quality and training at Euro CRM. ?Among the fifty or so people we had, we realised that many are afraid to be faced with quite a new job in Mauritius. They do not dare make the first step, as they think they do not have the right competencies. But when we tell them they?ll have training to help them better express themselves and be more extrovert, then they just go for it,? he explains.

Atmarain Mulliah, from Accenture IT, agrees with that analysis. ?Some people are afraid to commit into a new sector, as they have no training or experience in the field. But we try to reassure them by telling them that they will be trained by us.? Most of the recruiting companies are providing training to their potential employees ? especially call centres. This year, the main focus of Infotech is on training. For more specialised jobs like engineer or developer, they should already have a diploma or a degree before integrating one of those companies.

The many recruiting companies hope to have more luck at Infotech than they have had outside concerning people to work for them. Teleforma, a major call centre in Ebène, recently had to go into schools to market its job proposals and explain to future school leavers how the IT sector was a promising one in terms of job opportunities. Likewise, it took the company some time to launch its academy because it could not find the number of people interested in the sector because they feared working irregular hours.

Jean Suzanne, managing director of Infinity and senior adviser at the Prime minister?s office on ICT matters, also rang the alarm bell recently in l?express. ?Mauritians should learn to work in an environment of services." He further added, "As far as training is concerned, it should not be too complicated; the main problem will be with the attitude towards work.?

The lack of response for the training programme set up by the Human Resource Development Council (HRDC) also points at the difficulty to find operators for call centres. All companies hope that Infotech will be the beginning of a new era for recruitment in the ICT sector?