Incompetence cripples RP workforce

CEBU, Philippines - An advocate of the Philippine Business for Education said the underlying problem hounding the country’s manpower resources lies on the lack of competence of the applicants rather than on the perception of a “skills mismatch.”

Philippine Business for Education president Chito B. Salazar, in his presentation on educational reform entitled: “Education is Everyone’s Business: RP Education in Crisis or Things Really Changed that Much?” during the 1st National Business Conference of Independent Business Clubs, he said that the major problem in the country’s manpower is not skills mismatch but competence.

He said that after noting a seemingly huge mismatch between the skills of our graduates to that of the needs of different industries; the Managers Association of the Philippines (MAP) recently conducted a survey aimed at determining the reasons behind the manpower problems of the country.

Salazar revealed that most respondents in the said survey complained on their manpower’s ability to communicate, the lack of confidence and skills to speak and explain as well as do critical and independent thinking.

“Our education system’s main problem lies on the competence and not on mismatch. It is wrong to say that our universities and colleges are not producing the right courses because in reality, they are not producing graduates with the right competencies for a specific career in a particular industry,” said Salazar.

He noted one of the results of the said survey which showed that in Visayas, only 54 percent practicing doctors were able to pass competency levels based on the instruments by the Department of Health and that only 56 percent could correctly admit a patient while only 42 percent can administer correct drugs.

He said that this outcome could be disturbing considering that here in he Philippines, students are “extremely screened” and filtered out of the system.

Quoting the mean percentage scoring from the 2004 to 2005 National Achievement Test for High school student results, Salazar said that only 71 percent pass English competency exams and 44 percent has low mastery over the subject matter while only 16 percent pass in Math while only two percent pass in the Science subject.

“The problem of our graduates could not be treated if we do not go back and address the problems of our basic education system where there are two terrible problems and that is retention and participation, getting to school and staying in school,” said Salazar.

He said that one of the areas for reform is the government spending on education which is relatively small compared to the allocations given by our other Asian neighbors.

“Our government does not spend enough on education. Education is the single biggest resource in our country but we do not spend on improving the education of our people. We should not just look at how much we should spend for it but on how we should spend for it,” said Salazar.

He said that before the Martial Law was enacted, education used to get the single largest share from the national budget with 25 percent share but now it has gone down to 17.2 percent only.

Salazar said that the per capita spending for education in the Philippines is only $138 per student while in other countries like Thailand; their government spend $852 while Singapore spends as much as $1, 500 for education per student.

He said that the short education cycle in the country has also affected the quality of our education because the basic education, which should be spent for an average of 12 years is cramped to fit into the 10 years cycle which we are practicing.

“The overall low quality of our education system is difficult to treat without addressing the problems from our basic education. There is weak input in our tertiary levels and one third of our entire schooling is spent on remedial programs that is why when students graduate and enter the workforce, we usually spend more for re-trainings. The scale and scope of our educational reform is larger and we need to move now to save the lost generation so we can fix the problems before they get to college,” said Salazar.