Davao tech leader: our school curricula are 5 years behind on AI

Belinda Torres, president of ICT Davao Inc., told a media forum in Davao City on August 5 that Philippine schools are still teaching technology the job market has already moved past. Her group represents the tech companies in the Davao region, and she was speaking ahead of the 18th National ICT Summit, which runs in Tagum City, Davao del Norte from August 12 to 14.

Our curricula in the academe are five years behind, when in fact, what we need today should be looking three to five years ahead.

Her fix is not a new degree. She wants schools to offer micro-credentials, meaning short certificate courses a worker can finish while employed, plus regular retraining instead of one diploma that has to last a career. She said government, schools and companies have to write those programs together.

Why it matters

The industry Torres named first is IT-BPM, the call center and back office work that a lot of Filipino families live on. If the gap she describes is real, a graduate walks out with skills the employer stopped hiring for years ago, and the retraining bill lands on the worker. She put it plainly: the jobs we have now might not be the jobs we have in the very near future.

Davao is not waiting for Manila

ICT Davao is running an AI hackathon in November for developers, students and startups, aimed at local problems rather than global ones: disaster and climate response, and digital tax collection for city governments. Winning ideas would go to technology business incubators, the campus programs that help a prototype become a company. Torres also released a blueprint for 2026 to 2030 that pitches the Davao region as the country's next hub for digital manufacturing.

The catch to watch

This is a call to action from an industry group, not a signed policy. Nobody has changed a curriculum yet, no budget was named, and the school system that would have to move is the biggest bureaucracy in the country. The honest test is not the summit next week. It is whether a single school in the region is teaching something different by the time the hackathon runs in November.