The attempt to shorten the college curriculum through the proposed Senate Bill, known as the 3CE Act, is a perfect example of the dictum, “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.” In fact, there are strong arguments, as seen in the first two articles of this series, to deepen the liberal arts component of the existing college curriculum, as it’s the foundation for long-term progress in any knowledge-intensive profession. As I've personally advocated since the early 1980s, the general education program should include at least an introductory course in Linear Algebra and Calculus as preparation for any profession (including music and the arts). This is because of the pervasive application of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Data Analytics to every field. Advanced math is no longer just for those in so-called STEM careers. Anyone preparing for the next twenty years of economic growth in the Philippines can’t afford to be ignorant of the impact of the Fourth Industrial Revolution (AI, Robotics, the Internet of Things, and Data Analytics) on their daily work.

The students who will be taking college courses in the next four to ten years are the ones who will make it possible for us to achieve what the former National Economic and Development Authority (NEDA) — now the Department of Economy, Planning and Development — called “Ambisyon Natin 2040.” They need to be better prepared in critical thinking, effective communication, and quantitative computations. The liberal arts component of their college courses should be deepened, not curtailed.

Let’s not touch the college curriculum, which should be future-oriented. However, there are some short-term solutions for the inadequacies of the existing Filipino workforce, which is still the youngest in the ASEAN region with a median age of 25, compared to our ASEAN peers’ 30 to 40.

Let me cite the views of one of our top economists, former NEDA Director General Cielito Habito, about how to apply short-term solutions to the threat of AI killing our Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) sector. In his column in a leading daily, he refuses to succumb to pessimism about this sector, which accounts for close to 10 percent of the Philippines’ Gross Domestic Product (GDP): “Grim as the picture may seem, we cannot surrender the fate of the sector to a decline that need not be inevitable, provided we act swiftly. Urgent actions to upgrade our workforce capacities are crucial. Business and government must work together to equip workers with the needed higher-order skills such as data analytics, AI, model management, cybersecurity, and business intelligence. We must closely track the rise of Knowledge Process Outsourcing (KPO) and other IT-enabled services and attune our BPO industry to transition into more complex and less automated roles. Demand is rising for services that require human judgment, contextual understanding, and specialized expertise. These include health information management (medical coding, transcription, and clinical data analytics); finance and accounting (more complex financial analysis and standard compliance); and legal process outsourcing (paralegal support, document review, and contract analysis).” All these can be delivered to members of the existing labor force through short upskilling programs and micro-credentials. It isn’t necessary to modify the existing college curriculum.

Another critical shortage today exists in the farming sector. The average age of a Filipino farmer is already close to 60, and few of their children want to be farmers. Unless we act urgently, the Filipino farmer is a vanishing species. President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. has assigned the highest priority to food security, having occupied the position of Secretary of Agriculture in the first 14 months of his Presidency. He has a pragmatic approach to attracting the youth to the farming sector. In a video posted on his social media account, he states that we can encourage the youth to pursue farming through advanced technology.

Whenever I try to convince young people to make agriculture (or aquaculture) their livelihood, I always remind them that agriculture goes beyond farming. Food security is guaranteed by a progressive agribusiness sector, which goes beyond farming and encompasses the whole value chain, from farming to post-harvest, cold storage, logistics, and transport, all the way to processing and retailing. It’s obvious that advanced technology is essential in all these links of the agribusiness value chain, including farming itself. Among the initiatives cited by the President is the rollout of mobile soil laboratories equipped with state-of-the-art tools aimed at improving farm productivity. He rightly pointed out that such facilities will help farmers adapt to soil conditions that have been made worse by climate change.

In fact, referring to a farmer as an agritech entrepreneur is no exaggeration. If properly trained in a TESDA-type of school, a Filipino farmer can acquire skills not only related to planting crops but also in repairing farm equipment and irrigation systems, deploying drones, and choosing the appropriate chemicals for fertilizer or pesticides. This has been the experience of one of the leading agritech schools today located in Lipa, Batangas. The Dagatan Family Farm School was inaugurated by President Cory Aquino herself in the late 1980s. It was patterned after the very successful “Family Farm Schools” that originated in France and Spain. Children of farmers in these two countries were trained in schools that combined classroom work with actual farm practices on their parents’ farms, alternating between schooling and actual farming—very similar to the dual training system developed by the Germans in the manufacturing sector.

Unfortunately, the conditions of the Filipino farmers were far different from their French or Spanish counterparts, who were generally the wealthiest people in the countryside. European farmers had the resources to invest in the equipment and inputs necessary so that children being taught advanced farm practices in the family farm schools could apply what they learned on their parents’ farms. In contrast, due to a complete neglect by the Philippine Government of Filipino farmers, they were the poorest of the poor and couldn’t provide their children with the necessary resources to apply what they learned in the family farm schools. The result was a loss of interest in farming among the students and their massive migration to other occupations, especially in construction, not to mention overseas work.

Today, the family farm school has been modified into an Agri Dualtech School, which doesn’t require the use of the students’ parents’ farms (in fact, the students don’t need to be children of farmers). The curriculum goes beyond farming and includes other aspects of technology (including digital technology) as envisioned by President BBM. This model is now being replicated by NGOs in other regions like Cebu, the newly united Negros Province (Oriental, Occidental, and Siquijor), and Laguna. The establishment of these Agritech Schools by NGOs and eventually by private enterprises should be supported by the Government. They are practical solutions to the looming dire shortages of farmers. The State has many more productive tasks to undertake in the field of education than to tinker with the existing college curriculum.