AI, tech jobs easing out traditional work

CHEd commissioner Ethel Agnes Valenzuela —Facebook

MANILA, Philippines — The Commission on Higher Education (CHEd) is now finetuning its curriculum requirements to meet quickly evolving changes in job markets, according to CHEd Commissioner Ethel Agnes Valenzuela.

“We see that the jobs now are different. We now have AI (artificial intelligence), which is very specialist [and] sustainability specialist. It’s no longer the traditional jobs that we want,” Valenzuela said at a roundtable organized by the Swiss Embassy in Manila on Wednesday.

Citing a 2023 study by the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, the top 10 fastest-growing jobs in the region were AI and machine learning specialties, data analysts and scientists, sustainability specialists, robotics engineers, business intelligence analysts, big data specialists, information security analysts, agricultural equipment operators, financial technology engineers, and digital transformation specialists.

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Conversely, the same study showed that the top 10 fastest declining jobs were bank tellers and related clerks; material-recording and stock-keeping clerks; postal service clerks; accounting, bookkeeping and payroll clerks; cashier and ticket clerks; home appliance installers and repairers; data entry clerks; legislators and officials; administrative and executive secretaries; and statistical, financial and insurance clerks.

Courses today

“We are retraining and upskilling our graduates for new kinds of jobs emerging. So robotics, big data, all of these digital transformation specialists. These are the courses today, not in the future, but it’s now,” she explained.

Technical Education and Skills Development Authority division chief Gemma Lorena Reyes said that they are in constant communication with different industries to determine how they can revamp their curriculum to meet the new trend.

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“I believe that since in the process of developing our training regulations, standards, and curriculum, we consider that already in cooperation with the industry. We see the importance of this, by being ready we coordinate with the industry in the development of our curriculum and one of these aspects are on AI and robotics,” Reyes explained.

Department of Education Assistant Secretary Dexter Galban said they are striving to meet the digital specialization demands which have “catapulted” in the last few years.

“We cannot expect our learners from the get-go would already be experts on the matter. That’s why we want to be able to supplement that with learning opportunities that are actually coming from the industries as well,” Galban said.

“Right now we’re really exerting much effort ensuring that our [Grades] 11 and 12, which is basically our terminal aspect of the K-12 program, would be severely enhanced, extremely enhanced so that we would be able to update what the industry demands because the timeframe for that is much shorter,” Gablan added.