Following the release of a report which showed the Philippines lagging behind its East and Southeast Asian peers in terms of skills, Senator Win Gatchalian pressed the urgency of implementing reforms to boost Filipinos’ competitiveness.
Out of 100 countries, the Philippines placed 99 in online learning platform Coursera’s 2023 Global Skills Report, which ranks skills and proficiency of learners in business, technology, and data science. The country’s ranking fell by 29 spots from 70th place out of 102 countries in 2022.
The report further showed declining scores for the Philippines in terms of proficiency in business, technology, and data science. The country’s business proficiency percentile rank fell from 62% in 2022 to 16% this year. From 29% last year, technology proficiency in the country fell to 5%, while data science proficiency dropped from 21% to 1%.
The report draws skills insights for 100 countries from Coursera’s registered learner base of 124 million learners, 1.8 million of which are in the Philippines. The report’s introduction clarified that its data surfaces trends among registered learners on Coursera and are not necessarily representative of a country’s population. Sharing those insights, however, presents an opportunity to generate new, more granular insights and complement other, more traditional data sources on education, the report said.
Since the Second Congressional Commission on Education (EDCOM II) has begun its assessment of the country’s education sector, Gatchalian maintained that the congressional body’s proposed reforms should boost Filipinos’ proficiencies in areas covered by the report, especially as more companies adopt new technologies to boost productivity.
While higher education institutions equip students with skills needed in the workplace, Gatchalian also emphasized that the senior high school program should deliver on its promise to ensure work readiness for its graduates. The Batang Magaling Act (Senate Bill No. 2022), which Gatchalian filed, proposes the creation of the National and Local Batang Magaling Councils to strengthen the linkages and collaboration among the Department of Education (DepEd), local government units, academic communities, and industry partners.
“Sa pagsulong at pagpapatupad natin ng mga reporma sa edukasyon, dapat tiyakin nating hindi mapag-iiwanan ang ating mga kabataang Pilipino pagdating sa kahandaan sa trabaho at sa paggamit ng mga bagong teknolohiya. Tungkulin nating siguruhin na akma ang kanilang mga kakayahan sa kinakailangan ng ating mga industriya,” said Gatchalian.
