Frankly, interviewing new graduates these days shock us. Not all the time, but most of the time.

Not only are their English (written and verbal) atrocious, perspectives are narrow and reasoning skills are as thin as the hair of Dolphy without his wig.

Let's be frank - coming from where our generation did - today's Education in the Philippines seems to have gone to the dogs. It sucks, the burgis swears.

We can narrow the problems to three: lack of infrastructure, mismatching of skills and needs and integrity of the Professional Regulation Commission.

Everyone knows about the lack of rooms - having seen some classes held under the trees; lack of teachers - the good ones pirated abroad to be nannies and chamber maids in the London aristocracy and the American high society; lack of books - shared as they are by five students - even God wonders who has the privilege to bring it home in the evening.

Every year, over a million new graduates walk the gates of their schools with prospects of getting a job close to nil - except for those from super good universities and exclusive schools. Just consider that one million Filipinos went abroad last year because good job opportunities here are as elusive as senator Mar Roxas when it comes to marriage.

Too, the Educational System was an ill-repute institution because of some unethical lapses at the Professional Regulation Commission where leakages of test questions for lawyers, nurses, doctors and architects were once upon a time causing the whole professional licensing as suspect.

Thus we have lawyers who cannot compose a sound legal deposition, doctors and nurses who send their patients to the morgue faster than you can say "Mercury Drug," architects who design houses not fit for mammals to live, engineers who construct defective bridges that collapse at the passing of a summer breeze and hey, teachers whose grammar limps and syntax burdensome as "sin taxes."

At least, now, the ignominy of the 2006 Nursing Exams is now over. Over 70% of the Nursing Test re -takers (or 9,198) passed the new board exams that paved the way for the acquisition of the Visa Screen Certification from the CFGNS. The stigma is over.

It's good that the NBI and regulatory authorities are running after unscrupulous review centers, schools and their associated crooks which put the nursing professionals, so attractive to many patrons abroad, in a state of jeopardy.

It is a primordial goal that integrity be placed back into that Commission if we are to remain competitive as OFWs for those uppity jobs that require more than cleaning diapers, changing bed sheets, waiting for restaurant tips and hacking the rocks in the Middle East.

On the other hand, many thousand errors in grammar, facts and logic were exposed by a maverick professor in books distributed to our elementary and high school public school students. Free education for them has meant, therefore - as mis-education into the level that erroneous textbooks will lead them - mostly into intellectual perdition.

One adds to that the disaster that the popular text messaging mania has brought to the English language like "dats wat I mnt by I luv ya" or "4got 2 give u 2loy" - confusing the young with language combos, abbreviated wrongly spelt words and utilizing numbers for phrases, our precious Shakespeare!

These infrastructure drawbacks could soon perhaps (?) be solved with the P26-billion Cyber Education Project of the Department of Education. Using satellite technology, master teachers adept in TV communication will teach excellent elementary and high school courses linked to a nationwide network with 123 video channels via the Internet.

This is supposed to serve 37,794 schools or 90% of the entire public school system - borrowing technology from China's E-Education Plan serving that mammoth nation's over 500,000 universities and schools.

Will that solve the problem of lack of schools, teachers and books? Not so - the ACT (Association of Concerned Teachers) says, claiming that the project could be a "white elephant" because its success is premised on the availability of the still controversial National Broadband System. ZTE, remember? Not surprisingly both projects are China-based "technology and funding-wise." What's the real score?

Finally, the mismatching and joblessness is now met by the so-called NCAE (National Career Assessment Examination) where 1.3 million kids took last Tuesday nationwide.

The first batch of 1.8 million senior high students took the same test last January.

Unlike the NCEE (National College Entrance Examination) which was a pre-requisite to enter college, the NCAE determines other things. The aim is to determine a person's general scholastic aptitude to different careers like even technical and vocational paths, entrepreneurial ability and take stock of occupational interest inventory.

It means that an artist or actor need not take commerce or economics or a mechanically inclined trouble-shooter to take Liberal Arts and still be able to find jobs.

It also erases the decades-long bias of Philippine education to make employees of graduates instead of being entrepreneurs and creative inventors or risk takers.

If the Department of Education swings these reforms in a jiffy, that should add another feather in the cap of Jesli Lapuz, an AIM graduate, corporate turn-around artist and a Congressional finance and budget expert into senatorial material. And why not?

Lito Lapid and Bong Revilla are there scratching their bellies - so why not indeed.

But lest Jesli forgets, the moral recovery program subjects, must be embedded (most importantly) in the curriculum.

We have enough wise guys in this country who have used their brains and skills to put the nation to torch with shenanigans and hooliganism. That, in truth, is the real reason why the country is Asia's basket case.

Apil ka anang grupoha? Makaulaw baya.

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