“The
pressure to change the former model of education has largely come
from the business world . . . Today, when knowledge is available to
everyone on the internet, what a person knows matters less than what
they can do with what they know . . . As one business executive put
it, you can teach new employees content, but you can’t teach them
how to think, or ask the right questions.” [Dr. Beth Day
Romulo, Manila Bulletin, 18th Apr 2013] And it brings to mind
Einstein’s “The value of education is not the learning of many
facts but the training of the mind to think.”
And
what about the challenge of stepping up to “reality” –
especially when it can hurt? In business that is as constant as the
air we breathe and why businesspeople have lots of practice in facing
reality. For example, defining a problem is fundamental in business –
whether it hurts some or it hurts a lot.
If
PHL is to get on the fast-track of economic growth and development,
sooner than later, we have to step up to reality? Unfortunately, our
knee-jerk is: “We don’t have a perfect system but who has?”
And so we miss asking the right question. Neither China
nor the US or Singapore or Thailand is perfect – but if they have a
common denominator, they all attract investments so many times fold
compared to the Philippines. And unsurprisingly we're uncompetitive
in infrastructure, in investments, in technology, in innovation as
well as in developing talents that have the skill-set to develop
products and markets. And that is despite our OFW remittances and
growing BPO industry. President Aquino has made foreign investors
give us a fresh look but our neighbors are not standing still. The
evidence: Vietnam and Cambodia have gone ahead in rice farming, for
instance. In Indonesia, "foreign direct investment rose 27
percent in the first quarter to a record . . . [of] nearly $7
billion," NY Times, 24th Apr 2013. "Its GDP has
expanded at a steady rate of more than 6 percent for the last 3
years." Will Juan de la Cruz step up to the plate?
“No
‘growth takeoff’ yet . . . THE PHILIPPINES can hit a “growth
takeoff” by increasing investments and diversifying its exports, an
International Monetary Fund (IMF) official said. “The Philippines’
good performance... hasn’t qualified yet as a country undergoing a
‘growth takeoff,’” IMF Senior Economist Jaime Guajardo said in
an interview on Monday . . . The Philippines remains one of the
countries with the least foreign direct investments in the region but
the IMF official cited ongoing government efforts to address the
problem.” [Business World, 17th Apr 2013]
“THE
global competitive index of the Philippines is way far behind the
majority of Association of Southeast Asia Nations (Asean) members.
This was the scenario presented by Dr. Filemon Uriarte Jr., former
executive director of the Asean Foundation and former secretary of
the Department of Science and Technology.”
[Business Mirror, 13th Apr 2013] Citing
the government procurement of advanced technology products, it was
ranked last year at 107th place out of the 144 countries worldwide.
On the quality of scientific research institutions, the country
ranked 102nd; on the availability of scientists and engineers it was
at 91st; capacity for innovation at 86th; utility patterns granted
per million population at 83rd; university-industry collaboration in
R&D at 79th; and company spending on R&D at 58th . . . [I]f
the country procures advanced technology products, its innovation
ranking would definitely rise. The consequence of the Philippines
having poor rankings in competitiveness and poor innovation results
is low foreign direct investments . . . [A]nd this leads to low trade
and low gross domestic product (GDP) that is below the average Asean
GDP of $3,601 in 2011.”
“Despite
small and medium enterprises (SMEs) dominating businesses in Asia
including the Philippines, their contribution to the total economic
output has been limited, with the growth of these enterprises not
keeping pace with their numbers.” [The Philippine Star, 18th
Apr 2013] “The big numbers of small and medium businesses (SMBs)
however, don’t fully translate into GDP (gross domestic product) .
. . In the Philippines, where most businesses are SMBs, the sector’s
share to GDP is only a little over 30 percent.” And from
Business World, 22nd Apr 2013, “THE COUNTRY’S small and medium
enterprises are hardly ready for the ASEAN Economic Community that
will lift trade and other barriers among members of the Association
of Southeast Asian Nations by 2015, according to the state
think-tank.”