Formal tertiary education is facing a crisis due to its historical inability to equip graduates with the knowledge and skills actually demanded by the business and industry world. In response, some highly innovative entrepreneurs in the education sector are introducing new approaches to professional education. These approaches are attracting a large number of students whose main concern is no longer just a college diploma, but employability. Examples of these educational institutions, growing their enrollment by leaps and bounds, include the PHINMA schools (already enrolling over 180,000 students across the Archipelago), the National University (NU) system spearheaded by Hans Sy, and the Far Eastern University (FEU) system chaired by top banker Gigi Montinola.

The University of Asia and the Pacific (UA&P) isn't in the same league as these mammoth universities. However, it's just as keenly interested in leveraging its reputation as a leading business school to address the current demand from businesses for very specific knowledge and skills. UA&P constantly hones its relatively small enrollment in the knowledge and skills needed to meet the demands of an economy already facing the so-called Industrial Revolution 4.0 (Artificial Intelligence, Internet of Things, Robotics, Data Analytics, etc.). This is done without ignoring the fact that the Philippine economy still has much to do to address the first three industrial revolutions: IR 1.0, the mechanical revolution that began in England from 1790 to 1830; IR 2.0, the electric revolution in the 19th century with the invention of electricity; and IR 3.0, the electronics (chips) revolution of the twentieth century.

Even more serious is the problem that the Philippines hasn't gone through the required green or agricultural revolution that must precede the industrial revolution for large, resource-rich countries like ours. In fact, the agricultural sector is the Achilles' heel of the Philippine economy, representing some 70 percent of the nearly 20 million people who fall below the poverty line (about 16 percent of the total population). That's why, since its very inception, CRC has prioritized dedicating some of its faculty and research resources—more than offering academic degrees related to agribusiness—to guiding and providing vital information to professionals in both the private and government sectors on how to develop the agricultural and fisheries sector through the Center for Food and Agribusiness (CFA). The CFA was founded and led for almost forty years by the late Dr. Rolando Dy, one of the best agribusiness economists in the country. He was a perfect example of reskilling. He graduated with a Bachelor of Metallurgical Engineering but, through work experience and a degree in industrial economics, became the nation's foremost expert in agribusiness. Since its inception, the CFA has been upskilling, reskilling, and retooling Philippine managers working in the agribusiness sector. Today, UA&P devotes much of its faculty and research resources to offering an executive education program for agribusiness entrepreneurs and managers through its Agribusiness Executive Program (AEP). This is really just a variation of the Strategic Business Economics Program (SBEP), our longest-running program at UA&P, which has upskilled over 1,000 top executives (including some foreign managers) in business and industry economics.

By 2022, amidst the COVID-19 pandemic, UA&P came full circle. It expanded the original upskilling and reskilling program of the initial CRC in 1969, when it offered the Industrial Economics Program (IEP) at its original site in Jorge Bocobo St. in Malate, Manila. It launched Continuing Real World Education (CORE) as a platform that provides curated, relevant, and responsive programs to address the needs of organizations, especially in business, for upskilling, reskilling, and retooling their human resources. CORE is a response to the rapid changes in the business landscape, especially what we refer to as Industrial Revolution 4.0. It partners closely with business enterprises to help them keep up with the evolving demands of executive education. CORE's mission is to help top executives transform themselves and the rest of their human capital into relevant, morally responsible, and valuable assets of their respective organizations and institutions.

To cater to the specific needs of each sector and institution, CORE's initial offerings (delivered by UA&P's full-time faculty in cooperation with outside experts in different disciplines and specializations) include:

* Customized executive and management development programs

* General management courses related to effective communication and leadership, media management, and project and middle management training

* Benchmarked and relevant governance programs and certifications, data governance and data protection officer courses, and applied sustainability management

* Succession programs promoting unity in the family and the family business

* Certificate programs on strategic business economics and agribusiness

* Church management seminar

* Graduate management courses

In addition to these upskilling and reskilling programs open to the public, CORE offers in-house programs to individual enterprises such as East West Bank, MORE Power, TELUS, and Fast Logistics. Industry associations also contract CORE to provide specialized training programs to their member companies, updating managers on recent technological trends. For instance, CORE launched the Diploma Program in Supply Chain Management (DPSCM) with the Philippine Institute of Supply Management and the Foundation of the Society of Fellows in Supply Management. DPSCM aims to thoroughly enhance a participant's competency as a manager by teaching them the facets of supply management. Its end-to-end coverage—from Demand and Replenishment, Procurement, Customer Service to Distribution, including management skills—renders the program holistic.

UA&P intends to further utilize its teaching and research forces to design management courses for individual companies, following the outstanding example of its partner European business school, the IESE Business School in Barcelona, Spain. As regularly reported by the Financial Times, The Economist, and other international publications, IESE consistently ranks in the top ten for the quality of various management development programs like the MBA, Advanced Management Program, and Executive MBA. However, it is always Number One in customized, in-house management development programs. It's our vision at UA&P to be the best, not only in the Philippines but at least in the Southeast Asian region, in delivering in-house, customized upskilling and reskilling programs for large and medium-sized businesses. To be continued.