By Alex Villafania
INQUIRER.net
EVER increasing global demand for engineering professionals over the years has dented the country’s efforts in creating a pool of skilled workers, but several colleges and universities have banded together to reduce the “brain drain” by providing scholarships for masters and doctorate degrees for Filipino engineers.
The Engineering Research and Development for Technology (ERDT) project was started just recently to provide scholarships to talented engineering graduates. It was formed by a consortium of seven schools including the De La Salle University, Mapua Institute of Technology, Ateneo De Manila University, Mindanao State University Iligan, University of San Carlos, Central Luzon State University, and spearheaded by University of the Philippines-Diliman.
The ERDT aims to attain a critical mass of engineers who are holders of masters and doctorate degrees. These engineers will be provided with scholarships to go back, study and find their niche expertise. Eventually, their intellectual capabilities would sustain the country’s efforts to build its economy, particularly in infrastructure development.
The disappearing engineer
During the recently held National Science and Technology Week activities conducted by the Department of Science and Technology, the problem of the disappearing R&D engineer was among the main topics. UPD College of Engineering dean and head of the ERDT Consortium Rowena Guevara said the goals of the ERDT Consortium go deeper; the country’s culture of research and development is waning as engineering graduates move to other countries either to pursue higher-paying jobs or take their graduate and post-graduate degrees in foreign schools.
Guevara stressed that there are two types of engineers: the transactional engineer who does repetitive tasks and the dynamic engineer who could develop innovative technologies.
“We don’t have enough dynamic engineers focused on research and development in the Philippines and those who do are in other countries. We’re simply a consumer of technology than a contributor to scientific and engineering knowledge,” Guevara said.
Likewise, most engineering graduates end up working for low-level jobs in manufacturing plants and do not have the skills to move up the value chain. Guevara emphasized on the need to develop the country’s R&D capability by first building a community of experts who will be tasked to focus on high value R&D.
Premise of economic growth
Engineers are among the most important skilled workers in any economy. As they pursue innovations in all aspects of society, the economy booms with people benefiting from these innovations. A benchmark used by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) states that for a country to be capable of developing innovation, it should have a ratio of 3.4 MS or PhD holders per 10,000 population. The Philippines barely makes 1 out of 10,000.
“Of the 53,487 graduates of engineering each year, only 11,700 pass the government licensure exam. Each time we produce one MS graduate, Vietnam produces six; Thailand, 25 and Singapore produces 200. If you surmise, the more engineering graduates and post-graduates there are, the better the economy,” Guevara said.
She also noted that engineers have the highest global resourcing among professionals; engineers can travel to different locations for projects but the revenue they generate continues to flow back to where they are residing. In some cases, a few Filipino engineers work abroad but their salaries are taken back home.
Guevara said experienced engineers can earn as low as P50,000 and the salary goes higher. Thi would make engineers intellectual, technical and financial superpowers.
ERDT in action
The ERDT is a purely academic endeavor and, according to Guevara, local industries can directly benefit from the engineers who are receiving the scholarship. Currently, the ERDT has provided 256 graduate degree scholarship slots, 44 in PhD and 212 in MS. By 2008, they intend to provide another 244 scholarships. The goal is to create around 3, 800 MS and PhD holders by 2016.
If all goes well, the pool of MS and PhD engineers will increase the high-value added activities from foreign firms, attract more investments into technology-based industries and encourage younger generations to take up a more promising career in engineering R&D.
November 12th, 2007 at 4:26 pm
what are the requirements of the scholarship?
Am interested.
thnx..
July 30th, 2007 at 8:06 pm
well and worthy endeavor indeed!
I just wonder what are the mechanism in the program which would prevent these MS and Phds to practice in the Phils.
For all good intent and purposes , these “products” surely will be tempted to use their learning abroad.
July 30th, 2007 at 11:43 am
Its great that UP is spearheading this kind of program. Our country needs this instead of focusing on politics!
July 29th, 2007 at 4:31 pm
This is a great move by the pioneering schools in combating the decreasing number of experts who could help build the pool of economic shapers in our country. I myself is an ECE and would like to pursue a Masters someday but is quite limited in time due to increasing demand of precious time by our employer. I can also attest to the numerous exodus of talented engineers because of lucrative offers especially from the Telco and IT industries. Poaching of talents and skilled workers is also very rampant which could eventually drain our technical talents. Finally, I want to know how could I apply to this program.
July 29th, 2007 at 4:08 pm
I do believe in the abilities and knowledge of every Filipino! Only we are force to leave the country because of higher cost of living but low income. Everyone dreams of a better life for his family and it is very hard to achieve when there are so few opportunities to grow in our country. Politics make it hard for our economy to fully developed. Also the quality of education in many schools and universities were deteriorating.