By Bohol 3rd District Rep. Kristine Alexie Besas Tutor
Our colleges and universities should be producing more graduates who are fluent in European and Asian languages to offset the waning edge in English.
While our basic education sector is in a learning crisis, the leading higher education institutions are not because of our growing middle-class population. This is where our comparative strengths in human resources are.
Our colleges and universities should have more degree programs and short courses in Arabic, Korean, Japanese, Chinese language variants, and European languages. This would be on top of remedies to shortcomings in English among senior high school graduates.
The countries where these languages are spoken and written are the new horizons for Filipino graduates aiming for jobs and business ventures in the business process outsourcing sector and for overseas migration.
Investments of the government in higher education through the Tertiary Education Subsidy and UniFAST are working and should be ramped up in the coming years because college education is opening up more opportunities for young Filipinos and professionals.