The attempt to shorten the college curriculum through the proposed Senate Bill referred to as 3CE Act is an example of the dictum “If  it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.”  There are actually strong arguments, as we have seen in the two previous articles of this series, to deepen the liberal arts component of the existing college curriculum which is the foundation for long-term progress in any knowledge-intensive profession.  As I have been personally advocating since the early 1980s, the general education program should include at least an introductory course to Linear Algebra and the Calculus in preparation for any profession (including music and the arts) because of the pervasive application of Artificial Intelligence and Data Analytics to any profession (as well as any technical occupation). Advanced math is no longer just for those specializing in the so-called STEM careers.  No one preparing for the next twenty years of economic growth in the Philippines can afford to be ignorant of the impact of the so-called Industrial Revolution 4.0 (AI, Robotics, Internet of Things, Data Analytics) on his or her daily work.  The ones who will be taking up their college courses in the next four to ten years are the ones will make possible our attaining what the former 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.  There are, however, some short-term solutions that can be applied to the inadequacies of the existing Filipino manpower (still the youngest in the ASEAN region with a median age of 25 vs. 30 to 40 of our ASEAN peers).  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 BPOs.  In his column in a leading daily, he refuses to succumb to pessimism about this sector that account for close to 10 % of Philippine 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, business intelligence and more.  We must closely track the rise of 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 (including medical coding, transcription, clinical data analytics); finance and accounting beyond bookkeeping (more complex financial analysis and standard compliance); and legal process outsourcing (paralegal support, document review, contract analysis).  All these can be delivered to members of the existing labor force through short upskilling programs and micro-credentials. It is not necessary to modify the existing college curricula.

            Another critical shortage today exists in the farming sector.  The average age of a Filipino farmer is already close 60 years 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 in his social media account, he states that we can encourage the youth to farming by advanced technology.

  Whenever I try to convince young people to make agriculture ( aquaculture) their means of livelihood, I always remind them that agriculture goes beyond farming.  Food security is guaranteed by a progressive agribusiness sector which is 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 is obvious that advanced technology is essential in all these links of the agribusiness value chain, including in 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 to 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 the planting of crops but in repairing farm equipment and irrigation systems, deploying drones, choosing the appropriate chemicals for fertilizer or pesticides, etc.  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” originated in France and Spain.  Children of farmers in these two countries were trained in schools that combined classroom work with actual farm practices in the farms of their respective parents, alternating between schooling and actual farming—very similar to the dual training system developed by the Germans in the manufacturing sector.

Unfortunately, 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 which were necessary so that children being taught advanced farm practices in the family farm schools could apply what they learned to their parents’ farms. In contrast,  because of a complete neglect by the Philippine Government of the Filipino farmers, they were the poorest of the poor and could not provide their children going to the family farm schools the necessary resources to apply what they learned.  The result was the loss of interest in farming of the students and their massive migration to other occupations, especially in construction and not to mention overseas work.

Today the family farm school has been modified to be an Agri Dualtech School which does not require the use of the farms of the students’ parents (in fact, the students need not 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.  For comments, my email address is bernardo.villegas@uap.asia.