‘Say it in English, please’
Jun 13th, 2008 • Categories: CampaignsBy Tarra Quismundo
Philippine Daily Inquirer
MANILA, Philippines—The pleas posted on the walls of the school lobby spell out the name of the game in the age of globalization: “Say it in English, please.”
A chat with a student on the STI (Systems Technology Institute) College campus at Fort Bonifacio Global City in Taguig City shows that the campaign is working.
“It is an advantage because I know that when I work, I will encounter foreigners,” says Christy Cardines, 16, speaking in flawless English, the language of global commerce.
“Most of our students are graduates of public schools and incoming first year college students have communication skills of a Grade 4 student,” says Peter Fernandez, STI chief operating officer.
“We help them adapt to the courses. What we want to do is improve their communication skills and raise their confidence level … Even the simple thing of teaching them how to use chopsticks raises their confidence,” says Elbert de Guzman, an STI vice president.
Jobs-skills mismatch
Philippine colleges have been attempting to cope with a global demand for skilled workers, mostly in healthcare and information technology (IT) amid a crisis in the basic education system.
This demand requires proficiency in English, Science and Math—something that private businesses and government are trying to raise in a basic education system that has deteriorated through the years.
Few of the graduates of the public school system are able to proceed and complete a college degree and for them facilities that offer skills training that will land them jobs are the preferred alternatives.
Today, there is a so-called jobs-skills mismatch, a phenomenon of thousands of work available with few qualified workers—nurses, caregivers, call center agents, medical transcriptionists and IT workers.
“Right now, healthcare-related courses are really big because we are looking at the potential for employment abroad. And, of course, you have the demand for engineering and technology because of changes brought about by industrialization,” says Julito Vitriolo, a deputy executive director at the Commission on Higher Education.
He also points to the rapid changes in technology that colleges barely able to keep up with.
“There is a lag time between industry development and the capabilities [developed by] the curricula. When you implement a course that was based on technology three years ago, there is already new technology. That’s why schools should have enhancement programs to bridge that difference,” said the official.
Unpatriotic policy
But for student leader Vencer Crisostomo, such market-oriented education policy—served mainly by vocational-technical schools—is unpatriotic.
“The direction of that education policy is colonialist. We are becoming slaves of the world. There’s no more sense of history, no more sense of national dignity,” says Crisostomo, national chair of the League of Filipino Students.
It’s not enough for Philippine schools to produce students who “can read, write and speak English with a twang,” he says.
