Navigating the education-to-employment highway

Education is not just a means to a job. Rather, it is meant to imbue our youth with purpose and vision, in the words of Inquirer founding chair Eggie Apostol.

Republic Act No. 10533, also known as the Enhanced Basic Education Act, has been described by many, myself included, as the single most important piece of education reform in existence today. The intent of the law is clear: “to create a functional basic education system that will develop productive and responsible citizens equipped with the essential competencies, skills and values for both life-long learning and employment.”

RA 10533 calls for a shift to a 12-year basic education cycle amid a number of implementation issues and social concerns raised by both parents and schools. Still, K-to-12 directly addresses the issue of employability and job-readiness of high school graduates through its senior high school curricula.

Meanwhile, the Commission on Higher Education’s CMO 20 series 2013, more popularly known as the new GE Curriculum for Higher Education, seeks to “produce thoughtful graduates imbued with values reflective of a humanist orientation, analytical and problem solving skills, the ability to think through the ethical and social implications of a given course of action, and the competency to learn throughout life.”

CMO 20, however, has ignited quite a firestorm for delegating the culturally loaded task of teaching Filipino to basic education.

I would like to point out that both K-to-12 and CMO 20 seek to prepare the learner for eventual entry into the world of work, because no matter how you look at it, getting the job that you’ve aspired for in school affirms your humanity. That, I submit, is what education is ultimately about.

From that perspective, though, many of our youth face a lot of frustration and disappointment. After graduation from high school or college, they can’t find work despite many vacancies in key employment generators (KEG) like the information technology and business process management (IT BPM) industry, the hotel, restaurant and tourism industry, health and wellness, agribusiness, and even construction.

Of the five KEGs, the IT BPM industry has been exhibiting unparalleled growth. In 2013, this industry took in around 900,000 new hires. The IT & Business Process Association of the Philippines (Ibpap) says it looks like it will breach the one-million mark by the end of 2014. And yet, despite the growing demand, the hiring rate now stands at 7-10 for every 100 applicants, according to Ibpap executive director for talent development Penny Bongato. The main reason for this shortfall is the same in other industries: a mismatch between the acquired competencies and the demands of the modern workplace.

In their research paper titled “Education to Employment: Designing Systems That Work,” authors Mona Mourshed, Diana Farrell, and Dominic Barton picture the journey from education to employment as being on a highway where there are many entry and exit points.

One key finding that the authors cite is that the youth are not well-informed when making educational choices. “The evidence is distressing: way too many young people take a wrong turn here,” the authors say.

Another revealing finding is that in almost every society they surveyed, occupations that require a higher level of studies tend to carry more status. While 50 percent of the young respondents find vocational schools more appealing than an academic track, nearly two-thirds say vocational tracks are less valued by society.

In fact, of all the nine countries surveyed, it is only Germany where students believe that academic and vocational paths are held in equal esteem. This can be attributed to that country’s superb dual-tech approach in which the learner spends fairly equal amounts of study time at the workplace and in the classroom.

The authors cite certain ways to show how providers, governments, and employers can encourage more students to take and finish the right courses to prepare them for where the jobs are.

One is to embed career planning into the basic education curriculum. Norway and Japan have made extensive headway in this regard, with career-guidance courses integrated into the regular school day. In Switzerland, career counseling is mandatory for all students between the seventh and ninth years (ages 12 to 15). Students learn about typical working hours and wages, as well as academic and vocational training paths. They also visit companies and prepare for interviews, which can lead to internships. Parents are strongly encouraged to join these visits.

Another is to provide our youth with access to detailed information on current occupations and career paths and trajectories, like the Colombia Labor Observatory. “A teenager in Medellin, for example, can look up, say, the economics course at the local university and get an idea of the fates of those who went before.”

Our labor department now has a similar JobsFit website. It is still a work in progress but it can very easily turn into something like the Colombia Labor Observatory.

The Departments of Education and of Science and Technology, Tesda, CHEd, and the Philippine Regulation Commission are spearheading a career advocacy initiative. We are hopeful that their efforts will approximate the Norway and Japan examples.

Butch Hernandez (butchhernandez@gmail.com) is the executive director of the Eggie Apostol Foundation and education lead for talent development at the IT & Business Process Association of the Philippines.