The Agricultural Worker's Dilemma

When I was in college, there were older people who teased me for taking an agricultural course. They said I was studying in UP just to "daru" (plow the fields using a carabao). Some of them even told me that I am wasting my time taking agricultural course from UP and that I should have taken Law or Medicine to make the most out of the rare chance of entering this prestigious university. Some of them were people I respected as a young man that time so I was put into a dilemma as early as my first year in college.

This dilemma went deeper when I graduated college. Out of those who made it through the barrier exam, or board exam as it is popularly known, only 1 out of 10 could get a decent agricultural engineering job, others settle for non-engineering jobs while few choose to stay jobless for years rather than being hired as low-grade engineers. Quite frustrating for one who made sacrifices for 5 or more years.

In a jeepney ride during college, I overheard a civil engineering student saying that agricultural engineering is not an easy course because thermodynamics is not an easy thing to digest. I would say it is a psychologically difficult career rather than a mind boggling college course.

I then worked with a feeds manufacturing company for almost 2 years and was not given a single engineering assignment during my tenure. I then worked with a consulting firm conducting feasibility studies on agricultural projects. With these short work experiences, I learned that workers are categorized as "agricultural" and "non-agricultural". Agricultural workers are always paid about 25% less than their counterparts in other industries. Even agricultural professionals were paid less than their counterparts in other industries and were actually expected to settle for a lower standard of living since they are usually hired and located in remote rural areas.

It finally dawned on me that the average Filipino looks down at agricultural workers and professionals as 3rd-class income citizens and that it would take real education to change this point of view. It became clear to me why farmers and fishermen do not want their children to be in their line of jobs; and that they look at their jobs as only for the less educated.

Comments on my previous post: "Agricultural Engineering Board Exam 2007"

I seem to have ignored 2 anonymous yet very cool comments on one of my previous posts: "Agricultural Engineering Board Exam 2007". I am very sorry about that. In fact, I very well appreciate comments that I am reposting it here so it would be a lot easier for every body to read it. Here it goes:

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Anonymous said...
Eto lang ang masasabi ko...Compared sa number of examinees (between xavier and UP), that is 13 and 40,respectively, super laki ang difference. Considering that condition and statistically speaking, malamang mas may magfafail na examinee sa UP. I don't feel na dahil sa UP education deterioration kaya 88% lang ang pumasa. Sa tingin ko, there must be wrong with the examination coverage at sa type ng exam. Ibang-iba to what i've expected. Regarding sa issue kung sino ba ang best university for AgEng course, of course UP pa din. You're comparing Xavier and UP in terms of passing rate. Can you please compare also the list of top 10 examinees? Eight spots were from UPLB, and Xavier? I think, there should be another category for classifying top performing schools like >10, >20, >30 examinees.

November 21, 2007 1:00 AM


Anonymous said...
You see, the content of this article does not fit the title. The title should be "XU dethroned UPLB in the 2007 AE Board Exam" since it's what this article was all about.

BTW, although there was a "ranking", we all know it's not absolutely a "No.1", "No.2" or whatever rank it is. The passing rate of UPLB and XU are incomparable because of the very large difference of the number of examinees (sample size, stat) from these institutions. So I just wonder why give so much emphasis on it in this article. However, if we are truly to compare the UP Education with other schools, you should have considered into your comparison the result of the Top 10 performing examinees where 8 out 13 examinees came from UPLB. If there's a "probable deterioration" in the UP Education, how come after 15 years, UP got the top 1 spot again? It's like saying we're good because the rest are incompetent. Come on. A lot of people especially the AE community of different schools would get hurt with your opinion.

Anyway, thanks for congratulating and saluting us although it seems like its only for XU. Hehehe..

November 22, 2007 9:22 AM

Thank you for these comments. I could not agree more when you say that UP still is the the best university, in fact, not only in agricultural engineering, but perhaps, in any academic field. I would, however, admit that this is a "motherhood" statement. All of us would say that our universities or schools is the best the same way a mother would praise her son. Based on the number of examinees, it is the PRC and the Board who categorized which universities or schools should be included in the ranking. As far as I know, XU qualified to be included in the ranking since they have more than 10 examinees. We can make new categories, say, above 30 examinees or number of examinees who made it to the top 10, and make UPLB still no. 1 for 2007. But with respect to the PRC and the Board, despite of the series of controversies that it faced, I could only base my humble opinions on what they have published, no more no less.

Chances of Getting a Reasonable Job as Agricultural Engineers - less than 20%

About 3 months ago, I was playing with some of the features available in this blog. I created a poll asking this question: "What are the chances of an agricultural engineer in getting a reasonable job in the Philippines?." I got about 35 responses. Five percent answered very good, 8% answered good, 8% were neutral, 25% answered bad, and, as expected, 51% answered very bad. Not a good news for Philippine Agricultural Engineering job seekers. The question was particular only to the Philippines since I heard that agricultural engineers have better chances in many other countries.

I really could not tell the exact implications of these figures. It truly is not easy to summarily conclude that only agricultural engineers have very low chances of getting a reasonable job in this country. It could be that this really is the situation of the entire Philippine job market and not only to the agricultural engineering profession, that is, very low chances of getting a reasonable job whatever profession or specialty you might have. However, I also got hints that, of all engineering professions in the Philippines, agricultural engineers have the least chances of getting a reasonable job. Based on popular opinions, this is probably true.

I just hope this long-time issue will be addressed and answered during the Philippine Agricultural Engineering Week this coming April 2008.