Emigration, Employability and Higher Education in the Philippines

This book investigates the dilemma of educating students for future work in the context of the Philippines, one of the top sources of migrant labor in the world. Here, colleges and universities are expected to not only educate students for jobs within the country, but for potential employers beyond national borders. It demonstrates how human capital ideology reinforces such export-oriented education, creating an assumed relationship among academic credentials, overseas opportunity, and future migrant remittances. Findings indicate that attempts to produce migrant workers undermine the job security of college instructors, skew local curriculum towards foreign requirements, and challenge efforts to develop academic programs in line with local needs. As more developing nations turn to migration as a development strategy, colleges and universities face increasing pressures to produce future migrant workers who will have an advantage over other nationalities. This book emphasises the importance of understanding how this global phenomenon affects colleges and universities, as well as the teachers and students within these institutions. This book raises important questions on the role of universities in today's global economy and the effects of contemporary migration flows on developing countries.

Yasmin Y. Ortiga is a Lecturer at the College of Alice and Peter Tan, National University of Singapore.

1. Schooling in the Migrant-sending Country . Education and Emigration . The Case of the Philippines . Sites for Convergence: A Reflection on Method . Overview of Chapters 2. The Making of Export-oriented Education . From Excess to Employability . Private Enterprise and the 'School Business' . Staying Ahead of the Competition . Addressing Employer Needs . Education Problems for the Labour-exporting State 3. The Flexible University . Within the Migrant Labour Commodity Chain . Flexible Faculty . Flexible Spaces . Coping and Adjusting 4. The Burden of Producing the Global Filipino Nurse . Making Sense of Nurse Migration . Knowledge, Autonomy, and Professional Values . Professional Problems . Global Market, Local Burdens 5. Learning to Labor for Low Wage Hotel Work . Migrants without Class . Defining Class . Setting Students Apart . Learning to Start from the Bottom . Maintaining Class Hierarchies 6. The Migration Trap . Investing in Employability . Caught in the Migration Trap . Stuck in an Opportunity Trap . The Purpose of Higher Education 7. Conclusion . Education in Flux . What are schools for?