By Pepper Marcelo

It’s graduation time again. In a country where one’s worth is often measured by his educational attainment, finishing college is one of the highly anticipated milestones. Never mind that the graduate is at the bottom of the class or that he came from one of those diploma mills. What matters most to many Filipino parents is that are able to send their child though college; whether the graduate gets to practice what he studied or lands a job afterward is another matter.

But the celebratory mood is short-lived. Soon after, reality sets in: many of the graduates will have a hard time finding decent jobs, much more jobs that are suited to their studies. Thus we see marketing graduates answering phones and filing records, or mass communication majors taking on contractual jobs hawking credit cards in malls. The luckier ones end up as call center agents and bank tellers, jobs that require only three to six months training in developed countries.

Clearly there is a mismatch between the types of graduates our schools produce and the kinds of skills that the labor market needs. As a result, years of studies and the concomitant cost of college education are wasted. Labor statistics show that roughly half a million graduate are unable to get work in their chosen field each year. Despite numerous vacancies, local and overseas employers often complain about the lack of employable college graduates. Phil-job.net, the official job search site of the Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE), shows that some 125,000 local and overseas job vacancies are still open and have yet to be filled by qualified applicants. (See related story.)

A recent study by the Bureau of Labor and Employment Statistics (BLES) of DOLE shows that 1.052 million, or 39.1 percent of the unemployed, are college graduates and undergraduates. “The large proportion (50.6 percent) of the recorded 2.6 million unemployed Filipinos are young workers aged 15 to 24 and are educated with a college diploma or are undergraduates,” the study says.

Unemployable graduates

In the nursing profession, for example, there are 80,000 nursing board passers each year, but there are only a handful of job openings, according to the Philippine Nurses Association (PNA) and the Alliance of Young Nurse Leaders and Advocates. Statistics on the total of unemployed nurses are estimated to number upwards of 150,000. Many of them have become call center agents due to the difficulty of finding nursing jobs at home and abroad.

Graduates of business administration, hotel and restaurant management, and information technology are in the same boat. Statistics show that only three out of every 100 new college graduates are hired yearly because of their failure to pass competitive qualifying exams. Thus many of the graduates – or at least those with a workable grasp of the English language – end up as call center agents or bank tellers.

“Even if they’re graduates, they might not have the qualifications, competency and experience that the job requires,” says Criselda Sy, Director of BLES. “A major concern is that we’re not educationally at par with the standards of the industry.”

Moratorium on popular courses

To address the oversupply of graduates in certain courses, the Commission on Higher Education (CED) has imposed a moratorium on the opening of new programs effective this year. The following undergraduate and graduate programs were declared suspended for an indefinite period: Nursing, Business Administration, Teacher Education, Hotel Restaurant and Management and Information Technology.

According to CHED, the top five major disciplines with the most number of graduates were Business Administration and Management related Programs (114,000), Education and Teacher Training (96,000), Medical and Allied Professionals (87,000), Engineering and Technology (63,000), and Information Technology (49,000).

The moratorium is the government’s response to the proliferation of specific programs, which if left unabated would further lead to the worsening of the quality of our graduates.  The mushrooming of certain courses, according to one study, has resulted in the weakening of the Business Administration and Teacher Education programs, as well as the decline in the passing rate in the Licensure Examination for nurses.

Improving education

CHED is focused on ensuring that Philippine educational institutions are developing a national qualifications framework to improve tertiary education. It is pushing for schools to attain proper accreditation. Although CHED prescribes schools to attain the minimum requirements, it nonetheless encourages and evaluates institutions to go above the minimum targets so as to make their standards comparable to foreign standards.

CHED is working in collaboration with a technical panel of experts from the academe, as well as business and industry leaders, via their Policy Standards and Guidelines (PSGS). The multisectoral panel shall formulate academic development plans and make recommendations for specific disciplines.

“That’s our mechanism,” says Vitriolo. “Before you offer a program you have to comply with established policies and standards, which are formulated by the panel. Aside from that, there is a public hearing process, where we invite everyone, including students and parents, to attend the forum. After that, we finalize these standards for schools to follow.”

CHED has designated Agriculture, Mining Science, Aeronautics, Geology and Software Engineering as undersubscribed collegiate programs for which there is a big demand for qualified graduates.

Jobs of the future

In 2010, DOLE held a forum with business executives and “captains of industry” to discuss future business trends and their corresponding requirements for the next ten years (2010-11). Some of the critical concerns raised in the forum included the need to improve the analytical and communication proficiencies of students and their corresponding information technology skills, as well as honing the managerial skills of college graduates.

Through consultation and research, the government and the private sector identified 12 Key Employment Generators (KEG): Agribusiness, Cyberservice, Health and Wellness, Hotel Restaurant and Tourism, Mining, Construction, Banking and Finance, Manufacturing, Ownership Dwellings and Real Estate, Transport and Logistics, Wholesale and Retail Trade, and Overseas Employment.

In Agribusiness, for example, some of the specific in-demand occupational titles include Animal Husbandry, Agricultural Economist, Aqua-culturist, Coconut Farmer, Entomologist, Horticulturist, Plant Mechanic, Veterinarian and Pathologist.

Career guidance needed

“The problem is even if we do that, it largely remains a choice of the students,” says Vitriolo. “For example, there are very few takers in agricultural education, because they don’t find it as something as attractive [as nursing]. There are few people now taking that, but we need it, because we’re an agricultural country.”

DOLE recommends that there needs to be an intensified focus on information dissemination regarding hard-to-fill and in-demand occupations, including college degree  courses with an oversupply of skills, so that students are able to make informed decisions about their career choices.

“The business community should alert the educational sector about its labor requirements, and figure out how to attract enrollees in those areas,” says Sy. “That’s where career guidance and orientation come in. A student should be aware of what is going on in the labor market and make an informed career decision, so that after graduation, they will know where they should go.”

By Leandro Milan

The country’s education system continues to turn out college graduates whose training and skills are not attuned to the needs of the labor market both at home and abroad. This is the lament of human resources and labor recruitment officials who decry the continuing popularity of glamorous and white-collar courses that produce diplomas but not well-paying jobs.

The criticism had been voiced many times in the past by business leaders and politicians but both government and the private sector have failed to institute meaningful and concrete measures to correct the mismatch between skills and jobs. The issue gains added urgency in view of the government’s inability to provide jobs and its continued dependence on the overseas job market. Problem is Philippine education is not well suited to the requirements of the global economy as well.

“Many overseas employment opportunities abound in sub-specialties of various occupations but the Philippine education system is either ill-equipped and/or unprepared to offer corresponding courses to the demand but rather do a ‘one course fits all’ mentality,” says recruitment consultant Emmanuel Geslani.

This, he says, has led to “a disastrous oversupply of unemployable graduates.”

“In-demand careers like respiratory therapists, cardio technicians, laboratory, ct-scan, are often passed over in favor of more high-profile careers like nurses, says Geslani.

 Serious gap

 Lito B. Soriano, president of LBS-E Recruitment and executive director of the Federated Associations of Manpower Exporters, Inc., observes that there has always been a “serious gap” in the education system that persists in having curriculums that are “unsuitable” in providing their graduates with the possibility of employment.

In a study titled, The OFW Economic Engine, Philippine Reality and Required Reform Arising from the Global Financial Crisis, Soriano noted: “Of the one million college graduates annually, only five to ten percent are employed in jobs consistent to their course, only 30 to 40 percent will find any employment. The vast majority of graduates will remain unemployed.”

He says the country is producing too many nursing and tourism graduates who are unqualified to be hired abroad.

“Over 2,000 nursing schools have an annual total enrollment of over 420,000 students and each year, 100,000 new nurses take the board exams yet only 40 percent are able to make the grade,” Soriano points out.

According to him, there are also few job openings for nurses in the country since local hospitals can only absorb less than 5,000 nurses each year while overseas opportunities are very limited.

“Hospitals abroad have very strict requirements like two to three-year experience in specialty or clinical wards with large hospitals having a two hundred bed-capacity,” he explains.

 Soriano adds that there around 400,000 licensed nurses who are not gainfully employed and there is an estimated 80,000 board-passers joining the ranks each year. Many of them even end up paying for a job in a desperate attempt to obtain the necessary work experience.

POEA data

 Data from the Philippine Overseas Employment Administration (POEA) show only 10,000 nurses are able to work in the Middle East, United States, United Kingdom, Australia and Canada every year.

At the same time, the country generates more than 120,000 hotel and restaurant management (HRM) graduates every year, says Soriano. Most of the HRM graduates also need additional skills training to be able to qualify for employment overseas.

Labor Undersecretary Rosalinda Baldoz confirms that nursing and HRM courses post the biggest number of graduates for the past years. She says many of those who took up HRM and nursing courses want to go abroad but they cannot immediately qualify for employment overseas due to lack of the necessary experience required by foreign employers.

To curb the growing number of unemployed graduates of nursing, HRM and so-called glamour courses, human resources and labor recruitment specialists urge the concerned government agencies to undertake immediate reforms.

Soriano suggests that non-performing and sub-standard nursing schools be required to enforce necessary measures to improve their performance or face suspension.

For his part, Geslani challenges the colleges to evaluate their current course offerings and make them relevant to the needs of the global economy.

“Producing non-employable graduates of courses for which there is no demand could be viewed as unethical and merely a method of generating cash dividends for stockholders or owners,” maintains Gerslani.

The POEA meanwhile should regularly provide the current global job information so Filipino students could be properly guided in choosing marketable careers. Two examples of in-demand jobs in the Middle East are medical technicians and therapists.

Go voc-tech

Geslani and Soriano urge college and high school graduates to go to vocational and technical schools if they want to improve their chances of landing jobs. The government, they say, should provide more vocational and technical training opportunities to the youth.

According to Geslani, strengthening the training programs of Technical Education and Skills Development Authority (Tesda) will give more unemployed Filipinos opportunities for local and overseas jobs.

He and Soriano have been batting for massive training programs for the one million graduates from college and another million from the high school ranks, pointing out that blue-collar jobs are the wave of the future.

Lito Soriano, president of LBS-E Recruitment, said high school graduates should consider taking technical vocational courses at this time if they want lucrative job opportunities.

“The Philippines can take advantage of the pressing need for skilled workers in trillion-dollar projects in the Middle East if many of our high school graduates will shift to schools offering tech-voc subjects like auto servicing, technical drawing/drafting, building wire installation, shielded metal arc welding, machining, pipefitting, metal craft, and carpentry,” Soriano points out.

Demand outstrips supply

He says the country is unable to meet job orders abroad due to the shortage of workers with vocational skills.

“Recruitment companies are already competing with each other for the very few skilled workers for their job orders mainly from the Middle East.”

Most foreign employers, he adds, are looking for highly-qualified construction workers such as welders, flame cutters, pipe fitters, and carpenters due to construction booms in various countries abroad.

“Recruiters are hard pressed to supply qualified skilled manpower for the multi-trillion dollar projects in Saudi Arabia and Qatar whose development plans have not slowed down despite the rock-bottom prices of crude oil,” says Soriano.

In Saudi Arabia alone, there are job orders for housekeeping, gardeners, equipment technicians, water treatment, civil technicians, plumbers, painters and all maintenance positions on top of the 4,000 Filipino health workers needed there.

According to Tesda Director General Secretary Augusto Syjuco, about 22,540 plumbing and 20,687 welding job opportunities are available in countries such as in Saudi Arabia, Iran, Qatar, Russia, Australia and South Korea.

Skilled workers, such as welders and plumbers, receive higher salary overseas.  Syjuco cites a welder who receives as much as $6,000 or P293,070 a month abroad.       

“The growing mismatch of workers’ skills and the need of the industry have resulted in numerous overseas job vacancies unfilled by OFWs,” says Soriano. “It’s a matter of choice for students who might want to start a career abroad.”