Adapt or die

Naysayers and doomsday prophets fret that there exists in the Philippines a “skills gap” — a chasm, really — arising from a supposedly deeply flawed education system that isn’t churning out perfectly programmed worker bees.

Some may view the Philippines as brimming with a young yet unemployable generation because of the dreaded education-labor mismatch. Here’s food for thought, however: the skills gap may be a myth, especially when viewed through history’s lens.

From the Spanish-era galleon trade to today’s call centers, Filipinos have always danced to the tune of change as businesses adapt, innovate, and reinvent themselves. Faster than any textbook curriculum can keep pace, we have constantly reinvented ourselves.

So, we should stop being paranoid about trying to predict future job markets that will align with our educational system. Humanity has survived, even during global wars when schools were shut down precisely because of our innate adaptability.

We’re not dinosaurs going extinct anytime soon, even if we consider Albert Einstein’s fear that, and I quote, “I do not know what weapons World War 3 will be fought with, but World War 4 will be fought with sticks and stones.”

That’s Mr. Einstein running deep, not at all exculpating himself and Oppenheimer for the end-of-days-ushering nuclear weapons that bear their fingerprints, the poisoned fruits of their conjoined genius.

For all our educational system’s quirks, we have had more than our fair share of budding Einsteins and thought leaders from every conceivable field. There are traits, though, that schools hardly teach — values that set us apart from countries that measure success as having an unending parade of AI coders.

We are known for our “diskarte” and “abilidad,” our resourcefulness and adaptability. Take these traits against a 2023 World Bank study that says a large portion of the Philippine workforce holds an incomplete high school education, thereby limiting their chances at upward mobility. There’s no sugar-coating this, but are we throwing that rope over a tree branch to hang ourselves?

It’s just a matter of perspective and not wearing blinders where others, including Americans, stand. As of 2022, according to a US Census Bureau study, the percentage of the US population with unfinished high school education was 12.4 percent, representing 39 million of the 314.6 million Americans aged 18 and above.

Against these broad strokes, we Filipinos have become virtuosos at making the most of what we have, a skill we have honed since the days of the barter trade pre-dating the Spaniards setting foot on our beaches.

Who would forget Lapu-Lapu facing down Magellan’s armada and his musket-bearing sailors with bamboo spears and crude swords? Ingenuity saved the day for the Filipinos as it does help us now survive in this rough world, including the pandemic just ended.

With over 60 percent of the Philippine population between the ages of 15 and 64, as per Philippine Statistics Authority data, we have a predominantly working-age demographic. Maybe unlike the Singaporeans, ours have not learned robotics in school but have learned to solve problems on the fly. Those true life skills have kept our heads above water for centuries.

Technology is certainly a powerful tool in the classroom, but it can never replace the teachers, whose tasks include integrating online learning platforms and industry-specific resources. As you read this, generative AI has yet to fly, and yet Meta’s chief scientist, Yann LeCun, says it sucks in making a pitch to already replace it with “objective-driven AI.”

Generative versus objective-driven AI? Let’s split hairs later. The point is, just like the fast-changing jobs market against which education can never hope to be in lock-step always, technology changes as fast as you can utter, “Fudge! My new iPhone is now obsolete!!!”

We adapt pronto or die; it’s as simple as that.