English = jobs

It is not unusual for me to receive resumes every now and then. Sadly and in most cases, more than half of these resumes end up in my recycle bin. What’s most revealing is that – they reflect the sorry state of our educational system in the country.

It seems that many of our graduates have been taught in school to follow some templates and I bet a lot of human resource officers have come a zillion times letters of applications like this: “I read from a reliable source that your prestigious company needs … I would like to apply for any vacant position.”

Believe it or not I still even read bio-data with terms like “disease” or “desist” indicating or referring to a dead parent – and to think they are college graduates for Pete’s sake! It’s no wonder why only a few make it to the call centers despite the downgrade in educational requirements. “Filipinos still have lapses with their tenses, verb usage, subject-verb agreement—the basics,” the Call Center Academy accent trainer told Agence France-Presse.

Before us is a crisis – a crisis rooted in our educational system. We have a flood of graduates that cannot speak correct English much less construct a simple business letter like a job application. And guess what — there are even those who have MBAs or LLBs in their credentials yet fail in the most basic of examinations in English and Mathematics.

It makes me wonder how in the world they get through business or law school without getting noticed. What’s more revealing is that many of them come from purportedlu “standard” schools or should I say “now-mediocre” schools.

Part of the reason why there are less jobs for many of our graduates is not because there are not enough jobs available (on the contrary, just look at the ad section in most papers every weekend), it’s because they simply don’t fit in. It is true — opportunity is like a bird that never stays on a perch most of the time so we have to “grab it [opportunity] by the hair.” But what many of us don’t know is that opportunity is also bald especially when you’re without skills.

I recall when I visited the World Trade Center in Holland years ago, a professor from one of The Netherlands’ business school prided the success of the Dutch economy despite the lack in natural resources. He said it’s because they were raised to communicate the language of business.

It was necessary to learn German, English and French so they could engage in lucrative trading with the neighboring countries. As a matter of fact, in the Netherlands, 75 percent speak English; 55-60 percent speak German, and about 17 percent can also speak French. Science and Math plays also a big part in Dutch education.

Concerned about the decline in English education, the American and European chambers of Commerce and Business groups have begun their own English training programs to reverse the trend. Although laudable, I still think schools have the greater responsibility – it is in fact, their primary responsibility.