Human resource development in the Philippines is undergoing a veritable revolution. The traditional approach to preparing the youth for employment through formal education in colleges, universities, or technical schools—normally leading to some academic degree and ordinarily accomplished through classroom instruction—is being replaced by more experience-based methods conducted in the real world of work. Because of a long-standing mismatch between the knowledge and skills that industry and government demand and what our formal educational institutions have been producing, employers have been increasingly taking things into their own hands. They have been deciding to carry out their own skills training in-house or have at least been partnering with academic institutions in designing training programs more suitable to their actual needs for talents and skills. Modesty aside, I have been for some time (at least since the 1970s) advocating a de-emphasis on college diplomas and degrees and more focus on turning out skilled workers for agriculture, industry, and services.

When I used to discourage high school graduates, especially from lower-income households, from pursuing a college degree, I realized that I was being quixotic. I knew very well that what I was advocating was completely contrary to the deepest yearnings of parents and their children, even from the poorest households. I was not unaware that the be-all and end-all for the poorest parents living in a nipa hut was to eventually display the college diplomas of their children on the fragile walls of their homes, even if most of them were ending up unemployed because they did not have the skills demanded in the real world. I knew it would take time before what I called “diplomitis” could be cured. I consoled myself, however, with some limited success when I got involved in one capacity or another in the establishment of TESDA-type technical schools that have been producing technical workers, especially in the fields of electro-mechanics, such as the Dualtech Technical School in Metro Manila and the Center for Technology and Enterprise (CITE) in Metro Cebu. These two technical schools have trained thousands of young workers from the poorest households all over the country for employers here and abroad. These fortunate young Filipinos have been earning, even before they finished their enterprise-based training programs, wages and salaries much higher than many college graduates, even from the best colleges and universities.

It was like a breath of fresh air to me when I listened to President BBM in his second State of the Nation Address give a mandate to public education officials to refashion the K to 12 curriculum so that more resources can be devoted to TESDA-type training than to those leading to college degrees. That was the first real attempt by the highest official of the land to try to cure Filipino parents and their children of the cultural illness of “diplomitis.” Since then, the clamor for upskilling, reskilling, and retooling workers has gotten louder from industry people who have been increasingly vocal about the failure of our formal education system to produce workers with the appropriate knowledge and skills demanded in the real world of work. The Philippine Chamber of Commerce and Industry has led efforts to respond to the President’s mandate and worked with people from the academe and educational foundations like the Philippine Business for Education to enlighten our legislators about the need to restructure our educational system so that we can address the serious shortages of manpower in construction, transport, logistics, health care, and other sectors which need people with the appropriate skills instead of meaningless college degrees.

The result of these efforts has been the passing of Republic Act No. 12124, which was signed by President Marcos last March 3, 2025. The law was creative in that it solved the problem of shortages of certain skills while at the same time being resigned to the cultural fact that “diplomitis” will take a long, long time to cure. It assumed that parents and their children would still want to see a college diploma hanging on a wall of their homes. How is this possible? As an editorial in a leading newspaper explained the new law: “As access to higher education remains a privilege in this country, the passage of R.A. No. 12124 offers less fortunate Filipinos a more inclusive pathway toward a college degree…In a nutshell, the new law allows individuals to earn academic credits based on their learned skills, acknowledging that knowledge is acquired not only within the four walls of a classroom but the world at large. Years of hard work, hands-on training, and lived experience can be just as invaluable as reading textbooks or listening to lectures….”

There is a fly in the ointment, though. The new law will increase the bureaucratic hold of the Commission on Higher Education (CHEd), which is already burdened with implementing too many rules and regulations that more often than not inhibit higher education institutions from constantly innovating and adapting to rapidly changing technologies and approaches in the transmission of knowledge to future generations. As the editorial cited above commented, “At the helm of the program is the Commission on Higher Education (CHED), which shall be responsible for authorizing colleges and universities to offer degrees under the program and setting standards for evaluating a person’s skills, knowledge, and experience. It can also decide whether to approve or cancel a school’s permission to implement the program….According to the commission, the CHED will conduct ‘rigorous evaluations’ to assess the applicants’ professional knowledge and skills, ensuring they meet the academic standards required for degree equivalency.” I can just imagine now the bureaucratic nightmare to which this oversight function assigned to the CHED will lead.

I am appealing to industry leaders to overcome the obsession with college diplomas that parents and students have so that we can avoid all these unnecessary regulations that only cost effort and money that can be spent productively elsewhere (like addressing the classroom shortages in our public schools). The first thing they can do is to remove the minimum requirement of a college degree for many of their jobs. The focus should be on the actual possessed knowledge and skills of applicants, which can be reasonably measured by tests. More reliance can be given to the Certificates of Skills Possessed issued by technical training institutes and even universities that do not necessarily grant degrees. In fact, some industry associations are now deciding to craft their own means of certifying that individuals possess the skills relevant to their respective industries. They do not depend on educational institutions, or at most, these industries and their component companies can turn to teachers working for the educational institutions to help in the in-house training programs that are increasingly offered by companies who want to make sure that the knowledge and skills that their employees obtain through these programs are really tailor-fitted to their requirements. In fact, as we will discuss in greater detail in the next article, in-company or in-house training programs are getting to be more popular among Philippine business enterprises with the help of resource persons from business and other professional schools. To be continued.