Presidential aspirant Vice President Leni Robredo emphasized the need to improve the quality of education in the country to provide more opportunities for younger Filipinos who are about to enter the workforce.
During the PiliPinas Debate of the Commission on Elections (Comelec) Saturday night, March 19, Robredo said many Filipinos are finding it hard to find work despite job vacancies due to the state of the country's education system.
"Kailangan po natin, unang-una ayusin yung kalidad ng ating edukasyon para preparado yung ating mga graduates sa trabahong gusto nilang hanapin (First of all, we really need to adjust the quality of our education system to prepare our graduates for the job that they want)," Robredo said.
The Vice President also emphasized the need to declare an "education crisis" in the country to improve our performance in the international assessments and eventually address the persisting problems in this sector.
Robredo likewise expressed concern that there is a "disconnect" between our curriculum and the industry which is evident in the rising job vacancies in various industries such as the business process outsourcing (BPO), and maritime sectors.
"Sa BPO ang daming trabahong available pero walang qualified. Yung maritime, grabe pa yung opportunity dito pero yung skills kulang (There are plenty of jobs available in the BPO industry but no one is qualified. There are many opportunities in the maritime sector but the skills are lacking)," she explained.
To improve the country's education quality, Robredo said we should also increase the budget on education to 6 percent of our gross domestic product (GDP) as recommended by UNESCO. She said the government is currently spending only 3 percent of the GDP on education.
She also pushed to raise the salaries of teachers and provide more training for them instead of "drowning" them in administrative work to ensure better education quality.