Bad English blamed as Philippines lags India

Cecil Morella

June 6, 2005

An education system that churns out poor-quality college graduates who can barely speak English is handicapping the Philippines as the former US colony tries to match India and ride a global outsourcing boom to lift millions out of poverty.

Despite a huge potential pool for the call center and business process outsourcing industries from a rapidly growing population of 84 million, experts warned there are no quick fixes in the poorly funded educational system.

National achievement tests given to graduating high school students in the 2004-2005 school year showed that only 6.59 percent could read, speak and comprehend English well enough to enter college. Some 44.25 percent had no English skills at all.

Chief executive of C-Cubed Services Jose Xavier Gonzales said the Philippines has an ethnic prescription which should give it an advantage in outsourcing where India is the runaway leader of the field. ``We think American, feel Spanish, and act Asian,'' said Gonzales, whose business is one of the industry's mid-sized players in the Philippines.

Gonzales was speaking at an outsourcing forum in Manila where business leaders were told that while labor is cheap the quality is poor.

``Our country faces a very dire situation in terms of getting the basic education sector to provide a much more solid foundation of basic competencies essential for global compebreastiveness,'' Education Secretary Florencio Abad told the forum.

But a frustrated Gonzales said this is unlikely although the number of call center positions has risen dramatically to 68 plus 1,000 from just 4,500 in 2001 while back office operations including accounting and airline ticket reservations for foreign companies accounted for another 25,000 jobs.

``Unless the government, industry and academe take a more proactive role in enlarging the qualified pool, call center growth will max out at 30,000 annually,'' he said.

Amid the dearth of qualified people the outsourcing industry is making do by hiring professionals from outside the industry, luring ``career-shifters'' with higher pay.

Gonzales said this pool is also considered extremely shallow and has forced companies to cut back on hiring which has slowed growth in the sector.

And Abad added the deficiencies of Filipino college graduates are planted even before grade school.

``We were shocked to find out'' about a health department survey that found 30 percent of school-age children are undernourished, he added. This delays brain development and seriously inhibits intelligence.

Government data said of 100 primary school pupils, 33 dropped out of grade school, and only 45 finished secondary school. Of these, 26 entered college, and seven graduated.