Phl needs to strengthen state-academe alliance

CEBU, Philippines - The Philippines should step up in forging stronger linkage between the academe, government and industry sectors, to prepare the country's manpower pool for global competition.

In a statement, Philippine Chamber of Commerce and Industry chairman for education Eduardo Guteriez-Ong said that gaps in human resource development have significant economic costs as they undermine the country's global competitiveness, productivity and efficiency.

According to Ong a strong tripartite partnership between government, academe, and industry will create an educational system that provides the right training to prepare Filipinos workers to support local industry's expansion and compete in the global employment market.

Without intervention, the workforce will be unprepared for the skills requirements of local industry and the government's national development plan, undermining economic progress, he said.

In addition, local workers will be ill equipped to face the challenges-and take advantage of the opportunities-of "global realities" including globalization, trade liberalization, information and technology advancements, and bilateral and multilateral employment arrangements.

Ong said a strong workforce is crucial now that statistics show the Philippines' ranking in a number of world competitiveness indices going up in 2013 compared to 2012.

The tourism sector in the Philippines is one of most active industries that continuously pushed for tighter linkage to improve the industry's manpower advantage in tourism.

In an interview, Network of Independent Travel Agencies chairman Robert "Bobby" Joseph called the attention of the Commission on Higher Education to consider an immediate revamp of the tourism schools' curriculum, saying the current program is outdated and purely theoritical.

"There is a need to review and revamp the technical working group in CHED. You see, we are only producing college degree holders to housekeepers, waiters/waitresses, cashiers," said Joseph.

He said the tourism schools or the current curriculum of the tourism related courses is no longer applicable to the fast evolving industry of tourism and that the free-flow of professionals in the ASEAN integration would also threaten the offering good employment opportunities to Filipinos here.

Joseph suggested that CHED should come up with standard curriculum for all tourism related courses like the Hotel, Restaurant Management, B.S. Tourism, among others to involve the private stakeholders to teach students, rather than depending mainly on the theories taught by non-tourism-practicing teachers.

"Most teachers in tourism and hospitality courses have not been employed by tourism entities. They're living in the world of theories," said Joseph.

Ong added that to sustain and improve on the competitive advantages of the nation, it needs closer collaboration between industry and academe, with support from government, to beef up the workforce.

Likewise, the Asian Development Bank (ADB) has urged the academe and industry players in the tourism sector, to forge much stronger linkage as its recent study revealed the mismatch in the sector is still very high.

There should be strong linkage between academe and industry. This is reflected in the high NEET [not in education, employment or training] index in the Philippines, said associate project analyst Marie Jessamin Mitra is her recent presentation with Cebu tourism stakeholders. (FREEMAN)