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Representatives from the Asian Institute of Management and the University of Houston C. T. Bauer College of Business pose following the Memorandum of Understanding signing ceremony, reaffirming the partnership between the two institutions in advancing transnational education in business and technology. Handout

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<div><img src="https://od2-image-api.abs-cbn.com/prod/editorImage/1775622877869Representatives from the Asian Institute of Management and the University of Houston C. T. Bauer College of Business.jpg" style="width:960px" class="fr-fic fr-dib" width="960"/>Representatives from the Asian Institute of Management and the University of Houston C. T. Bauer College of Business pose following the Memorandum of Understanding signing ceremony, reaffirming the partnership between the two institutions in advancing transnational education in business and technology. Handout</div>MANILA — The headlines over the “learning crisis” in the Philippines are impossible to ignore. For example, a study by the Second Congressional Commission on Education (EDCOM 2) found that 88 percent of students entering Grade 7 struggle to read at that level. The alarm over the state of primary and secondary education is well warranted. It is also worth asking a related question further up the educational pipeline, whether Philippine higher education is actually preparing college graduates for the job market and for the kinds of jobs that will exist five or ten years from now.It is an issue that the Asian Institute of Management (AIM) and the University of Houston (UH) are trying to address. The two universities have launched what they call the first transnational education degree program in the Philippines: a double degree in Bachelor of Science in Data Science and Business Administration (BSDSBA) and Bachelor of Business Administration, Major in Management Information Systems (BBA, MIS). But to understand why a program like this exists at all, it helps to look at where the Philippine labor market is headed and how well undergraduate institutions are keeping up. The Philippines ranks 50th out of 139 economies in the 2025 Global Innovation Index. It produces far fewer researchers per capita than its neighbors. Only a quarter of Filipino youth and adults possess basic ICT skills like sending an email with an attachment, according to the 2019 National ICT Household Survey. More advanced abilities, like using spreadsheet formulas or creating presentation slides, hover in the single digits. In the IMD World Digital Competitiveness Index, the country sits at 56th out of 69 economies, behind Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, and Indonesia. Many students are entering college without the foundational digital skills the workplace now requires, and graduating without them, too.The labor market, meanwhile, is not waiting. LinkedIn identifies cybersecurity, data science, AI, cloud technologies, and analytics as among the fastest-growing fields in the country. DOLE&#x27;s JobsFit 2022 report flags chronic shortages in software development, IT user support, financial analysis, and business services. Firms say applicants lack skills in cloud computing, cybersecurity, and data science. Curricular updates have not kept pace. And a significant percentage of Philippine jobs face some degree of automation risk with call center work particularly vulnerable to AI-driven automation. <div>The gap between what the economy demands and what universities deliver has already arrived. And filling it will require schools to do several things at once: embed technology and data skills across programs rather than confining them to IT departments, adopt flexible delivery models, and build international partnerships that give students real exposure to different, more technologically-advanced economies. <img src="https://od2-image-api.abs-cbn.com/prod/editorImage/1775622837332AIM Undergrad Double-Degree Program Students.jpg" style="width:960px" class="fr-fic fr-dib" width="960"/>The first cohort of the AIM-UH double degree. Handout</div>The AIM-UH double degree, which was formalized in 2022, tries to do all of that. Students spend their first three years onsite at AIM in Makati, taking coursework in data science, programming, and business administration. UH faculty begin teaching summer courses in the third year. In the fourth year, students can choose to complete their studies at UH&#x27;s campus in Houston, Texas. Graduates walk away with two degrees and alumni status at both institutions.When asked why UH chose to partner with AIM, Dr. Xianjun Geng, dean of UH&#x27;s Bauer College of Business, said it came down to global strategy. “To be able to work with one of the best institutions in the whole world — Asian Institute of Management — that&#x27;s a very easy choice for us,” Geng said. He added that the arrangement benefits both sides: “Talent now competes globally. I think we will be benefiting from understanding the dynamism of an emerging economy like the Philippines, but at the same time, the students will understand the scalability and the mindset of going into an advanced economy like the US.”Dr. Christopher Monterola, professor and head of AIM&#x27;s Aboitiz School of Innovation, Technology, and Entrepreneurship, said the partnership grew from a similar conviction. “We know that economies, industries, and markets are all going global. So we need a global education,&quot; he said. “This is our venture into creating globally skilled professionals.” The choice of UH was deliberate. “They are the number one entrepreneurship school in the US, seven years in a row. And our entrepreneurship program here at AIM is recognized globally — our entrepreneur students actually own businesses. Go to a mall and chances are 70 to 80 percent of those stores have scaled up their businesses, in part, because their owners were our alumni.”But what Monterola kept returning to was the idea of producing a different kind of business school graduate. “We want to create hybrid talent,” he said. “We want to partner with an institution that will allow us to put business acumen together with the technical component. The leadership, technology, and management landscape is different in an advanced economy like the US. So we want them to have that exposure too.”The double degree also fits with what AIM has been doing over the past several years. The school has steadily built out its data and technology offerings, notably the country&#x27;s first doctorate in Data Science in 2020. It also offers a Master of Science in Financial Technology, Master of Science in Data Science, Master in AI and Data Analytics, and Executive Master in Cybersecurity Management, along with several short-course executive education programs. The UH partnership extends that direction to the undergraduate level, pairing AIM&#x27;s emphasis on leadership with rigorous training in data science and technological expertise. Asked how the program actually prepares students for the job market, Geng pointed to the value of early international exposure. For young talent, he said, being immersed in two closely connected but different cultures “at this young age creates a tremendous additional personal development advantage that each of us cannot provide separately.” Monterola described the ideal graduate from the other end: “Somebody who understands the technical rigor of data science, who can do and understand the fundamentals, but at the same time has the business acumen to talk to stakeholders, to talk to the people that matter.”And what of the concern that AI will simply eliminate the jobs these graduates are training for? Monterola pushed back. Recent data, he noted, shows an uptake in programming jobs, not a collapse. “It&#x27;s not that AI is taking the jobs away,” he said. “It&#x27;s that the nature of the job is changing. The workflow is being affected by AI, so it&#x27;s very important that modernized education at every level adapts to that.” Geng put it this way: “AI is challenging a lot of the hard skills. But as long as human beings remain the ultimate customer of our services and our products, the soft skills, including leadership, become even more important. For people who have this combination of hard and soft skills, this dual degree program is able to produce talent that also understands technology but possesses critically important soft skills.”The employment landscape is shifting fast, and schools that are not keeping up will feel it in their graduates&#x27; job prospects. Programs like the Bachelor of Science in Data Science and Business Administration that AIM-UH offers suggest that there is a way forward. They seem to understand that universities can and should adapt, that the right training can prepare students for the disruptions to be expected, and that the future lasts a long time.

Amid a deepening education and skills gap, a new AIM–University of Houston double degree program aims to better prepare Filipino students for a fast-changing, tech-driven job market.

Amid a deepening education and skills gap, a new AIM–University of Houston double degree program aims to better prepare Filipino students for a fast-changing, tech-driven job market.

AIM, University of Houston launch double degree to close skills gap in PH

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AIM, University of Houston launch double degree to close skills gap in PH

Kara Vibal Guioguio

Published April 08, 2026 12:37 PM PHT

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