Erosion of English Skills Threatens Growth

in the Philippines

By CARLOS CONDE
Published: November 24, 2006

DAVAO CITY, Philippines — Angeli Boteros speaks English like an American

teenager. A lifetime of watching American television and movies has left her
sentences peppered with the trademark phrases of American youth, including
“like” and “you know.”

Related
Filipinos Are Taking More Calls in Outsourcing Boom (Nov. 24, 2006)

Ms. Boteros, 26, is so steeped in American popular culture, and has such a good
accent, that on the phone, she could pass for a girl from California.

Over the last year, she has been doing exactly that. As a call center agent at
GCom, Ms. Boteros helps customers half a world away overcome problems with
products or services they have purchased.

“My friends used to tease me because of the way I speak English,” Ms. Boteros
said at an open-air cafe in this booming southern Philippine city. “Not anymore.”

Davao City is one of several areas outside Manila where call center companies
have been venturing, drawn by lower labor costs and large numbers of available
workers.

But there has been concern lately that the industry’s growth may be limited by
the deterioration of its main advantage: the English proficiency of the work force.
According to a study conducted by the European Chamber of Commerce of the
Philippines, 75 percent of the more than 400,000 Filipino students that graduate
from college each year have “substandard English skills.”
A survey in June by the Business Processing Association of the Philippines found
that English proficiency was among the top three areas that the country should
seek to improve, behind only the country’s poor international image and political
stability.

“English proficiency is also an urgent impediment to growth,” the group said in

the study. “Fifty-one percent of respondents indicated that English proficiency
has a ‘very significant impact’ on their organizations’ ability to grow.”

The same survey indicated that most call center companies hired only 5 percent
to 10 percent of the job applicants they interviewed, mainly because of
inadequate English proficiency.

The Philippine Congress responded to those concerns last month by passing a law
restoring English as the primary instruction language from high school onward.
Local dialects can be used up to third grade, and from third grade to sixth grade
English will be taught separately under the new law.

The Philippines is always referred to as an English-speaking country, with more

than 95 percent of the population able to speak or understand it. English, an
outgrowth of American colonialism, was the medium of instruction in schools for
decades.

But in 1987, the Education Department adopted a bilingual program to promote

the use of Tagalog, the other official language. The government was swayed by
studies indicating that children tended to learn better in their native languages.
Moreover, the nationalist lobby to restore Tagalog, also called Filipino, was
overwhelming in 1987 — a year after the revolt that toppled Ferdinand Marcos.

Over the years, Tagalog became more commonly used in schools, pushing out
English. Yet English has always been a major attractor of investment and a source
of pride.

The deterioration of English proficiency has been linked to an overall decline in

Philippine education. Public schools often lack books and teaching materials, and
even classrooms, desks and chairs. In many remote villages, pupils must bring
their own chairs and chalk to be able to attend class.
Public school teachers are paid meager wages, and many are forced to augment
their incomes by taking second jobs. The better ones, meanwhile, seek
employment abroad; today, teachers are among the most sought-after Filipino
workers in developed nations.

Then there is the rise of “Taglish,” a highly popular language combining Tagalog
and English that skews all the rules of grammar and usage. Moreover, a majority
of news shows on television and radio are in local dialects.

Senator Edgardo J. Angara, a former educator who co-wrote the new law,
described the problem as a “ticking bomb.”

Such a “rapid decline in the English competency of Filipinos would eventually

erode the competitiveness of the country’s human resources, both here and
abroad,” he said after its passage.

Mitchell L. Locsin, executive director of the Business Processing Association of

the Philippines, conceded that there was a problem but pointed to initiatives
under way to help solve it, including better training for English teachers. “We
should begin in the primary and secondary schools,” he said.

According to a recent government study, only 7 percent of high school graduates

can properly read, speak or understand English, and poorly trained teachers are
partly to blame, it said.

The country’s Commission on Higher Education said it would put English-

proficiency centers in hundreds of schools to teach these teachers.

The call center industry has also encouraged the establishment of private English
training centers, especially for those who want to work in the industry. Some
companies even offer this training free.

Business groups led by the European Chamber of Commerce have likewise begun
a program called “English Is Cool.” There have also been suggestions to integrate
what some have called “call center subjects” — with emphasis on how to speak
better English — into school curriculums.
Peter Wallace, an Australian business consultant based in Manila who advises
several multinational companies, said that one of the ways to reverse the trend
was to “strictly enforce English as the sole medium of instruction in both public
and private schools as it was in the 1950s and 1960s.”

The Philippines, Mr. Wallace said, could be a major player in information

technology, in the call center industry, and even in health care services and
tourism. “But only if it speaks English,” he said.

Source:
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/24/business/worldbusiness/24english.html?ex=132202
4400&en=7c40320ae01355e0&ei=5088&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss