The 4th Philippine Graduate Tracer Study: Examining Higher Education As Pathway To Employment, Citizenship, and Life Satisfaction from the Learner's Perspective

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This study reports on the results of the 4th Philippine Graduate Tracer Survey (GTS). It covers graduates from AY 2009–2011. A total 11,547 graduates were surveyed, representing 32.7 percent of the total sample. This GTS round piloted several study design improvements and administrative arrangements aimed at capacitating the Commission on Higher Education. Several challenges affected the response rate, but it is still a successful demonstration of the desired GTS implementation setup for succeeding rounds.

The results show that graduates are motivated by earnings and career advancement in their choice of baccalaureate programs. They are concentrated in a few courses, and except for nursing and information technology-related courses, their courses are not the high-paying ones. For graduates of courses without professional license requirement, the median length of working on their first job from graduation is five months. It takes 12 months to start on their first job for those who took license-requiring courses. Only 86 out of 100 are economically active.