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Manila Bulletin devider Opinion devider Employable?

Employable?

Published Jul 10, 2023 04:07 pm

MEDIUM RARE


Year after year after year, Polytechnic University of the Philippines hits the top spot as producer of the “most employable” graduates. And year after year, few bother to ask why so. After a short conversation last week with Chino Salcedo, who has been teaching in PUP’s San Juan campus for more than 10 years now, I came away with the impression that PUP graduates just happen to be driven – in Chino’s language, “Passion. They’re hungry, they know they need the job, they want it,” come what may. Such grit has to be felt by their interviewers. To the CEO of a conglomerate in the food business, PUP applicants are not afraid to admit that they’re willing to learn, they’re willing to start from scratch, at whatever salary is offered them, they need a job that’s going to be their lifeline as the family is banking on their financial support. PUP has more than one campus. Besides the one in San Juan which, according to then mayor JV Ejercito was architecturally inspired by Ateneo de Manila’s Rockwell campus in Makati, PUP students are distributed across Sta. Mesa (main campus), Ragay, Taguig, and Quezon City. Taken together, these branches produce from 30,000 to 50,000 graduates each blessed year. It’s an additional blessing that those young men and women are able to land a job on their own, without dropping the names of so-and-so, soon after receipt of their diplomas. The most popular courses include hospitality management, entrepreneurship, information technology, law, banking. One graduate landed top two in the last bar exam. “Ninety-five percent of our graduates pass their finals. By the way, we recruit teachers from the industry they represent, they’re real pros, not textbook types,” said Chino. Among the school’s famous alumni are TV personalities Ted Failon, Aljo Bendijo, Marianne Enriquez, Zhander Cayabyab, plus actor-sportsman-chef-Rep. Richard Gomez. Being a state-owned university like University of the Philippines, PUP charges no tuition. (In the old days, it was ₱12 per unit.) UP came second to PUP in the “employables” sweepstakes, according to JobStreet. With a worrisome shortage of 600,000 nurses for our own needs and the world’s, the Commission on Higher Education would do well to require PUP to open a nursing department. For our own good more than the school’s.

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MEDIUM RARE JULLIE DAZA Jullie Y. Daza
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