Poor English bad for RP economy

By Eunice Fernando and Sarah Azucena

For decades the troubled Philippine economy has been able to bank on one key asset
in attracting foreign investors—proficiency in the English language.

In recent years this advantage has helped win outsourcing contracts in the booming
business-process outsourcing and call centers, one of the few areas of the nation’s
economy that are actually expanding.

But even that lifeline in this poor country appears tenuous as fears surface over a
sharp decline in English compounded by falling school standards and an exodus of
linguistically skilled professionals.

Business leaders are beginning to question just how long the country can go on
touting its English skills.

Deteriorating school system

Some local and foreign business groups are so concerned they have set up their own
language centers to fill the gap left by a deteriorating school system.

The European Chamber of Commerce warned recently that 75 percent of the

country’s annual 400,000 college graduates have “substandard English skills.”

With teachers in English and math leaving for better paying jobs overseas the
country’s education system is fast deteriorating.

Sen. Edgardo Angara recently described this situation as a “ticking bomb.” “We have
practically squandered our intellectual capital,” he said at a seminar.

He noted that in all international achievement tests, the Philippines is rated near the
bottom in all subjects.

“That is reflected in the fast deterioration of our education standards in public and
private schools.”

Dismal result of achievement tests

Official achievement tests given to graduating high-school students in the 2004-05

school year showed that only 6.59 percent could read, speak and comprehend
English well enough to enter college. Some 44.25 percent had no English skills at all.

Eduardo Gullas, who filed a bill in 2004 to make English the medium of instruction at
all levels in schools, has warned that the rapid decline of English would “eventually
erode the competitiveness of the country’s human resources, both here and abroad,
in an increasingly globalized village.”

His bill is gathering dust at the House of Representatives.

“The employment of Filipinos overseas will soon be overtaken by China and India,”
Gullas said, warning that Filipino engineers in the Middle East risk being dislodged by
Indian and Chinese engineers who not only speak better English but analyze and
write reports in English better.

‘Ticket to the future’

Concerned about the decline in English education, the American and European
chambers of commerce have begun ambitious training programs to reverse the
trend.

The European Chamber, along with local business groups, recently launched a
program called “English Is Cool!” intended to revive the popularity of English among
the country’s youth.

In a globalized economy “English is a ticket to the future,” the chamber said, noting
that only 3 out of 100 applicants meet proficiency standards of the outsourcing
industry.

For program director Rina Tanchoco the decline of English among Filipinos is
“definitely repairable and reversible.”

English proficiency program

The Makati Business Club’s Philippines-US Business Council and the American
Chamber of Commerce are targeting their English proficiency program at teachers,
students and the workforce.

The program hopes to have 50 computerized English-language centers operating in

the Philippines with 250 teachers and 42,000 students trained and certified within
the next three years.

President Arroyo has ordered the Department of Education to make English the
primary medium of instruction nationwide, although the decree does not have the
force of law to compel schools to do so.

Some subjects will still be taught in the national language, Tagalog, but the Filipinos
must recognize that English makes them internationally competitive, Mrs. Arroyo said
in a policy speech earlier this year.

The decline of English sounds painful for Matthew Gray, an American who trains
Filipinos to speak with American accents for jobs at call centers.

“Filipinos are pretty good but they still have lapses with their tenses, verb usage,
subject-verb agreement—the basics,” the Call Center Academy accent trainer told
Agence France-Presse.

Peter Wallace, president of The Wallace Business Forum which regularly surveys
foreign businesses in this country, said that only 6 percent of people interviewed for
jobs in call centers had the required skills in English.

“So it’s hard to see how the Philippines can compete with elsewhere,” Wallace said.

There is plenty of blame to go around. Gray faults cell-phone text messaging and the
popularity of foreign soap operas dubbed in Pilipino.

The culprits: pop culture, domestic media

“There has been a steady decline since the Philippines prided itself on being one of
the best English-speaking nations,” Neil Perez, an English and Literature lecturer at
Manila’s University of Santo Tomas, acknowledged.

Perez blames the decline on the influence of pop culture and the domestic media,
where the dominant language is Taglish, a combination of Tagalog and English.

“The common language of everybody is this hybrid language Taglish,” he said. “It has
become the standard rather than the exception.

“The kind of things we see on television promotes the bastardization of the English
language. We accept what the media feed us,” Perez added.
--AFP
Source:
http://www.manilatimes.net/national/2006/may/23/yehey/top_stories/20060523top5.html