Executive Secretary Ralph Recto highlighted the national strategy of training workers directly within industrial hubs to eliminate the persistent gap between education and job requirements following a presidential visit to a major manufacturing estate in Batangas.
The statement coincided with President Ferdinand Marcos Jr.’s visit on Monday to the 1,100-hectare Lipa-Malvar (LIMA) Estates, where he also marked the first anniversary of the JERA-Aboitiz Power Global Technical Center of Excellence, a Japanese-Filipino training consortium.
Recto emphasized that economic estates should routinely host academic campuses, allowing enterprises to train their required workforce directly on-site and create a seamless transition from the classroom to the shop floor.
“Manufacturing hubs can double as incubation sites for the workforce they need,” Recto said, pointing out that having schools inside economic zones ensures graduates are directly absorbed by nearby companies that helped educate them.
The strategy aligns with the recently launched Philippine Semiconductor and Electronics Industry (PSEI) Roadmap, which aims to transition the country beyond traditional assembly toward high-value activities like chip design, engineering, and research. The roadmap targets $110 billion in electronics exports by 2030, a goal Recto noted will require a “national corps of engineers.”
As a former lawmaker from Batangas, Recto noted that LIMA Estates has drawn P130 billion in investments from 200 firms, generating 75,000 jobs. To support this growth, the estate set aside 10 hectares for a Batangas State University campus, which recently welcomed its first cohort of 800 engineering students.
“Students learn where they live, and later work where they learned and lived,” Recto said, hailing the model as a blueprint for keeping skilled Filipino talent gainfully employed locally.