The proposed “Three-Year College Education (3CE) Act” is a well-intentioned attempt to fix the mismatch between what the Philippine educational system produces and the actual needs of the job market. This gap is especially obvious in sectors that need technically skilled workers, such as construction, public utilities, infrastructure, mining, manufacturing, and agritech.

Human resource specialists often trace this problem to a misplaced priority among parents and students who favor a college diploma over enrolling in TESDA-type technical schools. These technical schools prepare students for skilled trades like carpentry, plumbing, mechanics, and electrical work, as well as hospitality and health services. This obsession with a college degree gained special attention when President BBM, in his second State of the Nation Address (SONA), recommended a review of the K to 12 program. His goal was to guide more young Filipinos toward TESDA training instead of a college education, which often fails to equip them with the skills needed by the labor market. The high rates of unemployment and underemployment among college graduates are a clear sign of this issue.

In my view, tinkering with college curricula won't solve the shortage of technical workers. This is especially true given the poor quality of learning our youth get from their basic education, as shown by their low scores on international academic achievement tests. As data from ChatGPT sources reveal, 15-year-old Filipinos who participated in the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) 2022 scored well below the OECD average.

In Math, they scored 355 versus the OECD average of 472.

In Reading, they scored 347 versus the OECD average of 476.

In Science, they scored 356 versus the OECD average of 485.

Out of 81 countries, the Philippines ranked around 76th in math, 79th in reading, and 80th in science. Only 16 percent of test-takers reached Level 2 proficiency in math, with about 24 percent in reading and 23 percent in science—meaning over 75 percent fell below the baseline in all subjects. The Department of Education (DepEd) estimates this gap (about 120 points behind the average) means Filipino students are roughly five to six years behind their international peers in learning progress.

In the area of creative thinking, which is vital for knowledge-intensive professions that require a college education, the Philippines ranked 63rd out of 64 countries, with an average score of 14—just one point above Albania. The OECD average was 33. In the first-ever PISA creative thinking assessment, Filipino students scored the lowest in generating original and effective solutions, particularly in written and visual problem-solving. At least for the next ten years, during which higher investment in education might address the poor quality of our high school graduates, college preparation for knowledge-intensive professions must include as many general or liberal arts subjects as possible to help bring our future professionals up to international standards.

Meanwhile, to solve the shortage of skilled workers from TESDA-type technical schools, we simply need to do a better job of convincing parents and their children to pursue the TESDA track in the Senior High School program. We should also encourage more private educational institutions to follow the model of successful technical schools like those run by the Don Bosco priests and foundations such as the Meralco Foundation Institute, Dualtech, CITE, Punlaan, Dagatan Agritech School, and the NYK-TDG Training Institute for ship officers. These schools have a strong track record of producing world-class technical workers, many of whom are now working abroad.

As some industry and trade associations are actively promoting, effective short-term solutions to the skills shortage include short courses or microcredentials that can upskill, reskill, or retool our millions of employed, underemployed, or unemployed workers to fill labor force gaps. There's a healthy trend of companies, both large and medium-scale, partnering with schools to provide on-the-job training, especially for students in TESDA-type programs. This school-industry partnership has been perfected in the German-inspired "Dualvoc" system, which combines classroom work with on-the-job experience. All of these practical solutions will leave the curricula for future medical doctors, lawyers, architects, engineers, and physical and social scientists intact.

Efforts in the IT-BPM sector to offer upskilling courses for their current workers are also commendable, as they ensure that rapid improvements in digital technology—especially AI—do not make them obsolete. Leaders of the IT-BPM industry, which accounts for nearly 10 percent of the GDP, are acutely aware that AI can replace workers in call and customer service centers. To avoid the massive unemployment this trend could cause, the industry association is sponsoring upskilling, reskilling, and retooling programs to upgrade call center agents so they can handle more knowledge-intensive work like animation, medical transcription, and legal documentation—tasks that require critical and creative thinking rather than repetitive actions. The Analytics and Artificial Intelligence Association of the Philippines also deserves praise for its plans to launch a nationwide AI upskilling program. Working with CHED and TESDA, the association will begin a five-tiered program in January 2026 to meet the needs of everyone from beginners to professionals in the field of Artificial Intelligence.

We should separate the solutions to short-term human resource shortages from the long-term challenge of producing world-class knowledge workers. The latter can only be achieved by designing undergraduate programs that allow for the critical, creative, and communication skills that cannot be fully developed during Senior High School to be addressed in the first two years of college.

To end this series of articles, let me show that I'm not alone in criticizing the "Three-Year College Education Act (3CE)" Senate Bill. I'll quote two experienced college professors who have actually argued for a deeper core curriculum at the college level. Inez Ponce de Leon, a professor at the Ateneo University School of Education—known for producing world-class professionals—combined her opinion with that of another educator. I'll quote from a column written by Ms. De Leon in a leading daily:

"Ana Cristina Tuazon’s column last week was a nuanced critique of recent attempts at shortening the college curriculum by removing liberal arts subjects.... As Tuazon said: 'Our students lack many competences, which can point to inadequate training in basic education—a problem that isn’t solved by assuming that college classes are redundant!'"

"Without strong, repeated training in writing, public speaking, reading, listening, mathematics, science, physical activity, and logic, our students will merely be compliant workhorses, unable to think for themselves or worse, afraid to have their voices heard."

I believe that college professors like Ms. Tuazon and Ms. Ponce de Leon represent a large portion of us who have grappled for decades with the problem of preparing Filipino youth for professional fields where they have to compete with their international peers. There is a consensus that instead of reducing liberal arts subjects, we should actually "deepen" the preparation for a professional career by offering more and better-delivered subjects in the liberal arts.

To be continued.