Key stakeholders in education and labor need to develop training programs to keep pace with technology change and refocus curriculum to meet the needs of industries.
The Alliance for Technical-Vocational Education and Training (TVET) said vulnerable jobs could be lost brought about by automation and presence of vulnerable industries amid the fourth industrial revolution.
“Promote career paths in agriculture, manufacturing and other traditional sectors by dovetailing with government marketing programs for job creation,” said the Alliance led by the Philippine Chamber of Commerce and Industry (PCCI) national and regional chapters, Philippine Exporters Confederation Inc. (Philexport), Export Development Council, Employers Confederation of the Philippines (Ecop ), and Technical Education and Skills Development Authority (Tesda), and Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ).
The group underscored the need to develop the research capability and labor market information on a par with Asean standards.
It said there is reference/benchmark such as Asean standard for in-company trainers’ training. Republic Act (RA) 11230, or the Act Instituting a Philippine Labor Force Competencies Competitiveness Program and Free Access to TVET, was signed into law last March.
Such law stipulated that employed workers who intend to develop and expand their current skills and training can avail themselves of assistance through a fund established to provide free access to TVET programs.
It also aims to address unemployment and jobs-mismatch by providing the Filipino labor force with free access to technical-vocational education, and instituting the Philippine Labor Force Competencies Competitiveness Program which would assess the prevailing requirement of industries. Dr. Eduardo Ong, chairman of PCCI Education Committee, said the PCCI, Philexport, the Ecop and other organizations are all working toward identifying the breadth of jobs that are likely to be threatened by this technological advancement.
“As one country, we should believe in the reality that jobs of the future will be the ones that machines can’t do and it’s fair to say that anything that can be measured or is based on rules will be automated. This idea I think is great news because it means we can automate the work and humanize the jobs,” he said.
Ong also underscored the need to strengthen collaboration between and among government, academe and industry to discuss the dynamic transformation of the economy into the digital era.