Tertiary Education in the Philippines : Individual Rationality and Social Myopia

This paper analyzes the phenomena of large volumes of college enrolment, educated unemployment and “job mismatch”. It reviews the structure of tertiary education in the Philippines, the investment behavior in schooling by individual households and the labor market in the Philippines. It concludes that the high rates of educated unemployment and job mismatch results from the expected response of household investment behaviour to the dualistic structure of the labor-market. The solution to the problems, therefore, are to be found in industrial rather than education policy.