EXPLAINER | Bridging the skills gap with vocational education for a future-ready workforce

The Philippines has 40 million people in its labor force who can easily be upskilled, reskilled, and retooled, but work must be done to ensure a future-ready workforce that is adept in fields that require a high proficiency in reading and mathematics, such as data analytics and robotics.

Bernardo M. Villegas is an economist, accountant, professor at the University of Asia and the Pacific, and research director of the Center for Research and Communication, Manila. In this Explainer video, he talks about Philippine education vis-a-vis its skills gap, the four concurrent revolutions happening in the country, and how the country needs to tweak its K-to-12 system so “more of our high school students become technical workers rather than possessors of academic degrees that lead to nowhere.”