AS SEEN ON TV
Marching out of the country
MANILA — Before the nation basks and fries in the heat of the elections and the El Niño Phenomenon let us be reminded that life goes on beyond the campaign trail and the rampaging drought. Yes, this month of March is also graduation month lest we forget. It is a time of personal celebration (for the graduates after everything they and their families had to endure to get an education) and a time of national mourning—- as graduation will again bloat the already obese unemployment figures. Unemployment is a cumulative problem the country has to deal with constantly. Yes, tens of thousands of college students will again be marching into joblessness unless they have the cure for cancer, the formula for world peace, or at least a degree which promises overseas employment.
While it is also the fate of many graduates, especially the unqualified, to wait a while and try harder to land a job (or a semblance of a job i.e. rackets), many of those qualified are not staying another minute to serve Filipinos in the Philippines. They are all itching to leave after spending years and some fortune to finish the course that will take them to promise land. It’s payback time and they want it pronto.Besides lately, students have walked away from courses that do not bear dollar signs. Population in courses such as social sciences, liberal arts and even commerce has been dropping, as these courses do not guarantee more than a nine to five local employment on minimum pay. In the coming years, these will most likely see further decline in enrollment, being courses perceived as dead investments. Parents these days will not likely sell the Carabao or plead with loan sharks for payment extensions— for futures with no abroad assurances.
We have always looked at this brain drain situation from the perspective of graduates leaving the country to seek better paying jobs abroad. There is another form of brain drain in the country, one that often goes unnoticed—- the dwindling in enrolment to courses such as the business, the arts and the social sciences. More and more young people prefer taking the “cash cow” courses. A lot of them are really forced to take these courses even if these are beyond their core competence and interest, for practical reasons. More lucrative courses such as nursing are perceived not just as bright investments with high ROI (return on investment), but a form of get-rich-quick scheme that our schools and colleges mass produce graduates and tailor fit them to serve foreign land.
Schools are— after all— businesses that profit from packed classrooms. Courses such as nursing, maritime science, and hotel or hospitality lure sure dollars in the very near future so these classes are overpopulated.
Nursing schools in particular are producing more new nurses this month. Many of their graduates are eager to get over with the mandatory “local experience requirement” while attempting to pass tests such as the nurses board or NCLEX en route to overseas employment. This comes in the heels of the closure of more than 200 district hospitals all over the country due to a shortage in medical workers.
Dr. Jaime Galvez-Tan of the University of the Philippines College of Medicine laments that it is rather hard to make health workers stay in the Philippines if they are only made to choose between poverty and a good life overseas. “It’s no contest,” Tan said in an interview over ANC’s Dateline Philippines Sunday.
And you think U.P., being more the more “patriotic” academic institution should be producing more medical workers willing to serve the country first before pursuing more selfish dreams offshore? Dr. Galvez Tan said the “eagerness to leave the country” of medical workers produced by the state university is the same as that of products of other schools. Due to lack of better paying jobs at home, they all want out. I just wished some of those new graduates who do not need to earn their thousands of dollars right away would stay awhile and serve the country. It is not only for their countryman’s good. Paying it forward attracts good karma on a personal level.
