Vocational education offers alternative to finding jobs

MANILA, Philippines - It used to be that a college diploma is a ticket to a secure future. As it is, the traditional view of education in the Philippines is that we proceed to college after finishing high school and then find a job after graduating.

And the more glamorous the job, the better. Hence those name plates of attorneys and doctors that still adorn the gates of homes in rural areas.

As the US recession has showed, a diploma is no longer enough to save you from being downsized if the economy is in a tailspin.

However, one vocational school in a poor town in Leyte province is challenging how Filipinos view education as a means to gain employment.

Instead of churning out graduates and leaving it to them to find work afterwards, the idea behind Kananga-EDC Institute of Technology (Keitech) is to produce a highly skilled labor force to meet the job market demand in the Philippines and abroad.

Of the batch of 122 graduates in April 2011, 51 took up welding – 11 of whom were female. That’s due to a growing preference for female welders because of their natural feminine eye for detail and delicate touch.

A partnership between the local government of Kananga town and geothermal company Energy Development Corporation, Keitech sits on what used to be a three-hectare airstrip built by EDC on the gentle slope of Mount Matin-aw, about 20 kilometers north of Ormoc City.

With unemployment in Kananga at over 10 percent of its 43,000 population and the local economy limited to rice and coconut farming, Keitech is a takeoff point to change one’s future.

Leyte province is an irony. Poverty is visible. Locals mainly subsist on farming and fishing. But it is home to Asia’s largest geothermal steam field – over 107,000 hectares run by EDC.

Keitech is five kilometers from EDC’s Tongonan power plant, which produces 112 megawatts. Tongonan is one of five EDC plants in Leyte producing over 700 megawatts of electricity. White steam from Tongonan can be seen from the Keitch campus.

Looking around at the unemployment, it was a no-brainer for EDC to figure out what to give back to its host community as part of its corporate social responsibility program.

In Kananga’s case, according to Paul Aquino, president of Kananga-EDC Educational Foundation Inc. and an uncle of President Aquino, less than five percent of the town’s high school graduates go on to college. “So what were the others doing,” Aquino says. “They go into subsistence farming or become tambays.”

Keitech training courses run for 10 and a half months and range from carpentry, electrical wiring installation, welding, plumbing, commercial cooking, hotel and restaurants services. However, it is the Keitech model that makes the difference. For one, students are taught English – essential for employment abroad.

“We don’t teach you only skills but also employable traits – the values and the work attitude,” says Aquino. “Corporate worlds are looking for corporate attitude. Skills can be learned anywhere.”

“Your diploma and technical skills will get you a job but it is your values and habits that will make you keep it and propel you higher in life,” Oscar Lopez, EDC chairman emeritus, told the 122 graduates at their commencement rites.

The programs include on-the-job training in industries to increase students’ employment value. Keitech also has a job placement office to help graduates find work here and abroad, complete with passport application assistance. Companies and institutions are encouraged to source their manpower from Keitech by sponsoring trainees, thus increasing chances of employment.

Because of Keitech’s location, students are housed in dormitories on-campus – creating a bond among them. Extra-curricular activities put a premium on honesty, respect, courtesy, self-discipline, teamwork, cleanliness and wellness.

Enrollment and everything else is free, worth about P120,000 per student – equivalent to a year in De La Salle University. But not everyone can get into the program. Applicants from all over the Philippines will have to compete for slots and hurdle entrance examinations.

Therefore, getting into Keitech is a blessing that the institute hopes its graduates will share with those who will follow in their footsteps. “The institute’s mission was built upon the pay-it-forward platform, so those who obtain gainful employment after the training will also help the next batches of trainees through a sponsorship program,” Aquino explains.

Encouraging Filipinos to give vocational education a second look, Aquino points out that an economy is going to need skilled workers if it is to grow and expand. Indeed, investment bank Goldman Sachs lists the Philippines in what it calls the “N11” or “Next 11” group of emerging economies.

Says Aquino: “Skilled labor is not to be looked down upon.”