THE RECENT call by the Commission on Higher Education (CHED) and the Trade Union Congress of the Philippines for students to avoid five oversubscribed courses (education, nursing, business administration, information technology, and hotel and restaurant management) reflects the deepening crisis of the combined education and employment problem in our country. Unfortunately, in this crisis, the Pinoy youth are its most apparent victims.

In youth sociology, this refers to “school-to-work” transition problem, which in recent years, even developed countries such as the United States, Canada, Australia and the United Kingdom, have to contend with, due to the on-going global restructuring of the world economy. What more for developing countries like the Philippines, whose local economy, for a number of decades has been pumped by overseas employment?

It is quite obvious that these oversubscribed courses are closely linked to the intention of Pinoy students (and their respective families) to work abroad. It is good to know this interest of CHED to freeze and regulate, if not totally stop these courses from being offered, until a semblance of employment balance is achieved. But the focal issue in the mushrooming of these courses is not just about discouraging students to take up these oversubscribed courses. Rather, it is the salient problem of transition among Pinoy college-educated youth.

As an observer of Pinoy youth transition, I find that the school-to-work transition problem in the Philippines is not only about the education-labor mismatch. The transition problem has a lot to do with a singular educational trajectory of becoming “professionals,” which I argue, lowered most of Pinoy youth’s valuation of agriculture and fisheries as well as vocational/technical courses. This “professional worldview” arises from the general orientation of our educational system, where from primary to tertiary, Pinoy students are generally being prepared for a world of non-manual, professional work. While TESDA offers alternative vocational courses for the many that were unable to get into or finish college, the problem is structural and systemic. That is, our current educational system is not designed to prepare Pinoy students for alternative trajectories other than acquiring white-collar jobs.

Our country has not evolved an educational system designed with alternative job-skill trajectories in mind. There is a need to seriously rethink the type of education our country offers to our Pinoy youth in connection with the type of jobs our country and the global world would need in the future. This will only make sense if CHED with the Department of Labour and Employment, National Youth Commission, and the legislators, will discuss about the problem of youth education and employment nexus as an intertwined, interrelated and interconnected public issue of school-to-work transition.

Other than issuing a memo discouraging the students to take up oversubscribed courses, I think a radical step to overhaul our ailing educational-employment system merits an establishment of a Commission on Pinoy Youth Transition, which might offer meaningful, practical and policy measures to mitigate this problem. The PNoy government should be equally mindful and proactive in responding to this apparent credential/diploma crisis spilling over employment problems mostly experienced by Pinoy youth as this is not just about corruption of the past administration. Rather, this is a corruption of the future, our future.

Dr. Clarence M. Batan is a youth sociologist, teaching at the Faculty of Arts and Letters and the Graduate School, and is doing research at the Research Cluster for Culture, Education and Social Issues at the University of Santo Tomas. Send comments to This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. and This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. .