I disagree that current education and jobs do not jibe. In fact, the opposite is true, which is the problem: Current education and jobs do jibe. Lest it escape notice, even the most respectable local universities are turning whole wings into nursing departments. During Sister Mariani's wake last year, I was astounded to learn that St. Joseph College's excellent music department (Lea Salonga developed her talents there as a kid) had become just that, a nursing wing. The entire educational system no longer exists to educate, it exists to find work for students -- abroad. The entire educational system is blindly obeying the law of supply and demand. It's probably true that current education and local jobs do not jibe. But local jobs are no longer the priorities of students.
Which brings me to Jacinto and company. The two stories are only seemingly unrelated, they are in fact related by the surest of links, which is cause and effect. The problem is that the entire country, and not just the educational system, is now geared toward producing people who can work abroad, whatever work is available and whatever sacrifices need to be made. At the very least that translates not just into a huge drain of
scant brain but a huger drain of scanter resources. This country spends a fortune to produce doctors, only to see them work as nurses in foreign hospitals. How lucky can you get, being an American or Brit who has a nurse with the qualifications of a doctor to attend to you!
The problem is that we have lost all sense of ambition altogether, we are willing to settle for crumbs, comfort ourselves that beggars cannot be choosers, and lug around a loser's mentality. No small thanks to a current government that keeps lowering our already horrendously diminished expectations. We're now even willing to settle for a President we did not vote for.
Read the whole thing.
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