WHAT good are years of schooling, thousands of pesos in tuition and countless parental sacrifices if graduates discover that the jobs available require skills they were never taught?
This is the harsh reality behind the job mismatch confronting Iloilo City — a disconnect between what our schools produce and what our economy needs.
Mayor Raisa Treñas has rightly sounded the alarm, calling for a review of school curricula and training programs to align graduates’ competencies with industry demands.
Her concern is particularly disquieting in Iloilo City’s business process outsourcing (BPO) industry, where companies reportedly struggle to fill Tier 3 positions requiring advanced technical expertise and supervisory capabilities.
Consider the irony. Iloilo produces graduates year after year, yet businesses cannot find enough qualified workers. We have graduates looking for jobs and employers looking for talent, but the two cannot always find a match.
Are our schools preparing students for the jobs of tomorrow, or merely producing graduates for the unemployment lines of today?
The consequences extend beyond unemployment and underemployment. Behind every graduate forced into an unsuitable job is often a family that sacrificed financially for the promise of a better future. Behind every unfilled skilled position is an economic opportunity that could have benefited an Ilonggo worker.
But schools cannot shoulder the blame alone. Industries must identify emerging skills requirements, provide meaningful training and invest in developing local talent. Government, meanwhile, cannot keep celebrating investment pledges and business expansions without ensuring that Ilonggos are qualified to benefit from the opportunities these create.
Economic growth means little if the best jobs in Iloilo remain beyond the reach of its own people.
Treñas’ proposed collaboration among educational institutions, businesses and government is therefore imperative. But it must go beyond conferences, ceremonial partnerships and memoranda of understanding.
Iloilo needs a concrete, measurable workforce development strategy that identifies skills shortages, modernizes curricula, strengthens technical training and tracks graduates’ employment outcomes.
Educational success must no longer be measured merely by the number of graduates marching across commencement stages, but by how many secure meaningful employment and build rewarding careers.
Iloilo takes pride in being an educational center and an emerging investment destination. Yet these distinctions ring hollow when its graduates cannot meet the requirements of industries operating in their own city.
A diploma should be a passport to opportunity, not an expensive certificate of disappointment.
Unless this mismatch is decisively addressed, Iloilo risks becoming a city rich in diplomas but poor in employable talent.
And that would be an indictment not of its graduates, but of the institutions entrusted with preparing them for the future.
