Identifying the gaps between skills taught to graduates and the needs of the industries was the topic of the 39th UP Alumni Council Meeting, with the theme, Elevating Industry-Academe Partnership: Closing Ranks to Develop Future-Ready Graduates.
In his keynote address, Isidro A. Consunji, a civil engineer and the president and chair of DMCI Holdings (DMCI), discussed some of the challenges their company faces. He also recommended solutions for these concerns.
Consunji is the 2024 UP Alumni Association (UPAA) Most Distinguished Alumnus awardee.
He said that DMCI is a company in construction, real estate, mining, power, and water. Presently, the company is experiencing “widening skills gap, weak talent pipeline, and specialized expertise scarcity.”
These result in “insufficient qualified candidates that will help maintain our competitive edge and operational efficiency” and “pressure on existing workforce which can lead to burnout and decreased productivity.” This, he said, “limits our ability to innovate because employees are primarily focused on meeting stretched roles on a day-to-day basis.”
To address the problems faced by companies like DMCI, Consunji suggested that industries set up pop-up classrooms in the workplace. There, short mentorship programs can be held, where senior industry professionals, particularly those retiring soon, can mentor student-interns.
Consunji added that year-round internship opportunities can be offered to allow multiple placements for students. There should also be live case studies that would directly involve students with ongoing projects and research work. In addition, industries can offer virtual research assistant positions to student-interns so they can remotely work on industry-relevant projects. This way, they can earn while gaining practical experience. This is also an opportunity for companies to expand the student-interns’ knowledge about the industry without disrupting company operations.
For the academe, Consunji suggested forming industry advisory boards to provide faculty members with insights and feedback on curriculum, research, and skills requirements. They should also participate in industry immersion, which offers short-term placements so faculty members experience day-to-day operations, challenges, and trends. The faculty members should also engage in “industry shadowing” where faculty members will accompany industry professionals as they go about their schedule to gain insights into current practices, emerging technologies, and daily challenges. Faculty members should also participate in live consultations with industry partners so they can apply their expertise to real, on-the-ground challenges. Finally, faculty members can co-teach courses with industry experts. This way, students benefit from both theoretical knowledge and practical insights.
His talk was followed by a roundtable discussion with UPAA Lifetime Distinguished Award recipient Jaime Z. Galves Tan, MD; UPAA Presidential Award recipient Benedicto Ernesto R. Bitonio Jr., current undersecretary for the Department of Labor and Employment; and recipients of the Distinguished Alumni Award: Candida B. Adalla, PhD (agriculture education); Joanna Rose T. Laddaran, (business continuity and disaster resilience planning for micro, small, and medium enterprises); and Tereso O. Panga (economic development: foreign direct investment generation).
Distinguished Alumni Award (journalism) recipient Jose Roberto A. Alampay moderated the discussion.
The UP Alumni Council then issued a Resolution Urging Government, Industry, and the Academia to Strengthen Collaboration to Address Jobs-Skills Mismatch signed by the UPAA Board of Directors (BOD), where the first item was the recommendation to “Support House Bill No. 7370 [An Act Creating a Tripartite Council to Address Unemployment, Underemployment, and the Job-Skills Mismatch Problem in the Country, and Appropriating Funds Therefor]: Advocate for the passage of House Bill No. 7370 by raising awareness, lobbying in Congress, and providing insights to ensure that it allows the academia to perform its mandate to advance knowledge, foster critical thinking, and prepare students for professional and societal contributions.”
Present as members of the Alumni Council were UP President Angelo A. Jimenez, UPAA President and Alumni Regent Robert Lester F. Aranton, UPAA Third Vice President Fernando C. Sanchez Jr., UPAA Secretary and UP Alumni Council Chairperson Herminio C. Bagro III, UPAA Legal Counsel and Resolutions Committee Chairperson Raul R. Reyes, and UP Office of Alumni Relations Director Karen Connie Abalos-Orendain. Serving as hosts were Amina Zalmia Rasul-Bernardo, member of the BOD, and Benigno Glenn R. Ricaforte, PhD, BOD member, doing the invocation.
The 39th UP Alumni Council Meeting was held on Aug. 12 at the UP Ang Bahay ng Alumni.
