The State of The Nation

The Philippines continues to be weighed down by problems that cut across a broad spectrum: economic, social, political and environmental. These concerns continue to mitigate whatever efforts there are by both public and private sectors to adequately provide Filipinos with a decent way of life.. Perhaps the biggest burden of the Filipinos is poverty, which affects roughly 70% of the entire population. Directly linked to this social concern is the education of the Filipino children and youth, or lack thereof. This crisis has not only deprived a great number of Filipino children with their basic right, but has also seriously jeopardized their opportunities to earn a living in the future. In an excerpt from a 2006 Philippine education situation report by the non-government organization KAAKBAY Citizens’ Development Initiatives (KAKBAY CDI), it revealed that:
 
   Only 6 out of every 1,000 Grade Six elementary graduate students are prepared to enter high
       school.
   Only 2 out of every 100 Fourth Year high school students are fit to enter college.
   Only 19 out of every 100 public school teachers have confidence and competence to teach
      English.
    The Philippines is No. 41 in Science and No. 42 in Mathematics among 45 countries.

The report also stated that “the quality of Philippine education is declining continuously. Elementary and high schools are failing to teach the competence the average citizen needs to become responsible, productive and self-fulfilling. The principal reasons for this decline are: 1) the country is simply not investing enough in the education system, and 2) the education establishment has been poorly managed.
 
“Operating on a very limited budget and with a very high investment demand on social services, the Philippine government has had to thinly spread its resources. But the government is not investing enough on public education to provide a meaningful impact on the educational system, in particular, and the lives of the citizenry, in general.
 
“It is for this reason that non-government organizations and other stakeholders have to take on the gargantuan task of bringing quality education directly to the poorest areas and the poorest people in the country and share this responsibility with the government”. 

Additionally, students are not receiving the kind of education they need. For those who are fortunate to get into school, the quality of teaching and the values they receive do not prepare them to meet the needs of the workplace.

Meeting the needs of the Workplace

In the face of the gloom cast by the global economic downturn, the country remains poised to hit a positive note on the domestic front. The Medium-Term Philippine Development Plan for 2004-2010, the government’s roadmap towards poverty alleviation for the greater number of the Filipino people, expects the local economy to grow by at least seven percent, which would generate between 9.7 to 11.5 million jobs, or an average of 1.5 million jobs annually. 

Despite this, however, unemployment rate is at a significant 10.3% (as of October 2005). Young Filipinos between the ages of 15-24 account for nearly half (48%) of the out-of-work statistics. Majority of them (42.6 percent) have at least gone to high school. They are unskilled, inexperienced, and naturally, unemployable.  With the magnitude of unemployed placed at about 3.8 million, this is translated into more than 1.8 million youth without jobs and without proper education. On the other hand, about 34 percent of the unemployed in this age bracket or approximately 600,000 people who attained college education could not find work.

This situation indicates a structural unemployment problem arising from:
1.    Skills mismatch between the requirements of the available jobs and the skills possessed of those seeking employment;
2.    Geographic mismatch between locations of job opening and job seekers;
3.    Not having the right quality and right quantity of manpower at the right time


The Case for Vocational-Technical Education

The Technical Vocational Education and Training (TVET), more popularly referred to as Voc-Tech or Bok-Tech, plays a vital role in addressing the poverty alleviation thrust of  the MTPDP. Bok-Tech is seen as a major element in the country’s development as it addresses the skills training requirements of those who will enter the labor market and those already there, and those who would need to upgrade or develop new competencies to enhance employability and improve productivity in accordance with the needs of the industry. This is expected to open new avenues for employment among the youth as well as those in the “blue collar” segments of the workforce both here and abroad, and ultimately help spur and sustain the country’s economic growth.

In  the handbook on educational research in the Asia Pacific region, National Institute of Educational Planning and Administration Jandhayala B.G. Tilak quoted social scientist Thomas Balogh in saying that voc-tech vet was viewed as the solution to the educational problems in the developing economies, due, among others, to the following:

•    Differentiation of occupation in the developing economies requires secondary school graduates with varied skills.  Because of changes in production processes resulting from technological ad¬vances, the nature of the demand for skills, both in terms of quantity and quali¬ty, changes.  Modern technology requires fewer highly qualified middle and lower level skilled personnel.  Vocational education can produce exactly this kind of manpower.
•    Vocational education is also seen as an equity measure. Vocational education has been seen as the answer to an enrolment prob¬lem: the tendency of some students -- especially those in the lower class -- to drop out of schools without occupational skills, a problem that vocational education promises to resolve by providing a more interesting and job-relevant curriculum.  More specifically, it is believed to be an effective answer to rural prob¬lems, to alleviate unemployment; to reorient student attitudes towards rural society, to halt urban migration, to transmit skills and attitudes useful in employment, and as an important measure of develop¬ment for disadvantaged youth in rural and urban areas.
•    Vocational education is providing a more positive acceptance to blue collar work. Vocational education is considered helpful in developing what can be termed as ‘skill-culture’ and attitude towards manual work, in contrast to pure academic culture and preference for white collar jobs.

The growing value of Voc-Tech education has been such that organizations such as UNESCO and the World Bank have played a leading role in reviving and furthering the cause of vocational educa¬tion.  UNESCO adopted in 1974 an important detailed recommendation concerning technical and vocational education, and argued for provision of technical and vocational educa¬tion as “an integral part of general education,” as “a means of preparing for an oc¬cupational field, and as an instrument to reduce the mismatches between education and employment and between school and society at large.”  The World Bank’s sector policy paper on education (1974) commented on the excessively theoretical and abstract school curricula and suggested increasing vocationalization of the curricula of academic schools.


Are We There Yet?

Still, not all countries in the Asian region have fully embraced the values and promise of Voc-Tech education. According to the Asian Development Bank (1991),  the agrarian economies of Bangladesh, Nepal, Pakistan and Myanmar have “patchy” systems of vocational and technical education. Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Thailand and Sri Lanka have “fairly developed” vocational and technical education systems – both in public and private schools. Japan has the most developed and well-established infrastructure providing school based as well as enterprise-based Voc-Tech, Korea stands as a leading example” of how governments can promote an extensive school-based Voc-Tech, while Singapore had developed a comprehensive vocational training infrastructure, forging strong linkages between education institutions and training agencies. Interestingly enough, India and China, the two of the biggest countries on the globe and a major beneficiary of the potentials of Voc-Tech, suffer from “prejudice against manual work” and hence have “lopsided” education development structures. 

In recent years, Filipinos have started to better appreciate the value of the impact of Voc-Tech education. With local and global demand for skilled workers continuing unabated, particular focus is being shined on this sector to produce the people with the corresponding skills, attitude and commitment.


Voc-Tech: The Need for A Champion

The aggregate demand for the period 2006-2010 of local and overseas labor is placed at 6,426,128 The highly critical skills – those that need to be maintained and continually developed because of natural attrition (in the case of rapid manpower turnover in the aviation industry), vertical and lateral skills progression, and natural growth of existing economic sectors (in the case of the BPO industry) -- are those that are urgently needed and should be addressed immediately, such as y.  Any delay in action would cause economic and job opportunity losses. 

The preference of overseas employers for the Filipino worker also cannot be overstated.  The estimated Filipino migrants’ annual remittance of $10 billion represents a critical source of the much needed revenue to keep the Philippine economy afloat.  Such amount is estimated to represent 10% of the GNP and about 50% of the total government budget. 

Given the tremendous importance and critical role that skilled labor plays in the Philippine economy, there exists a pressing need for a group to sustain its momentum, advocate greater awareness and acceptance of Voc-Tech education, and continuously provide opportunities for growth and advancement of people benefitting from and institutions engaged in Voc-Tech education.

The scope of Voc-Tech education as a sector is massive and its value to society is truly undeniable that representation in every available fora is already seen as vital. Thus the establishment of an advocacy group is but a natural recourse to a sector and a movement that is on the rise. Among other things, the group shall provide a voice to the collective aspirations of those in this sector in providing needed legislation that will provide progressive vocational and technical education to millions of impoverished Filipino youth and marginalized labor. The group shall also endeavor to provide venues by which the sector it represents can effectively coordinate with every government agency, corporate establishments, academic institutions and other groups in the pursuit of enhancing vocational-technical education and training to meet local demands and exacting global work standards. The group shall further bridge resources and needs to strengthen, enhance and expand the centers of knowledge and create an ideal environment for better learning among the youth and those in the workplace seeking to further their growth and development.

All these lead to the ultimate goal of empowering those at the bottom of the pyramid, to provide them with the skills, motivation, and values to overcome poverty by creating a better future for themselves and their families, and to become an integral part in building a sustainable future for the country.