The Warning Lights in the Training Room

In 2018, the Philippines got the bottom ranking of 78 over 79 participating countries in the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) which assessed 15-year-olds enrolled in grade 7 or higher in basic learning competencies in Math, Reading, and Science. This dismal rating was reinforced in the 2022 assessment where the country ranked 76 over 81 participating countries (OECD, 2018; Chi, 2023).

Questions arise from this predicament. What happens now? How does the Philippines lagging behind the rest of the world in terms of math, reading, and science impact the future of its workforce especially in the BPO and the VA industries?

Let’s take a look into the experiences inside the training rooms of a BPO company.

The Training Room

The trainer gives a simple instruction. “Explain why”

As a former trainer myself, I would usually ask this during a practice session or a lesson. The trainee listens to it, answers the question, and would usually stop there. Sometimes, with no explanation, no reasoning, nor an attempt to show how the answer came about.

I spoke with Mej Julien Mabanes, a BPO trainer who shared her insights for this article. For her, the issue is not always that trainees cannot read the words. Most of the time, they can. Basic reading or listening is not an issue. The problem is that they do not always process the full task.

In many cases, they can conclude and give answers, but would fail to actually expound on what made them answer that way. As small as it may seem, and as isolated as it may be perceived, these misses can be a warning sign for a country that has built a large part of its modern service economy on communication.

Since 1992, when the first BPO company was established in the country, the Philippines’ selling point was clear: Filipinos can communicate.

We can speak English. We can adjust to foreign clients. We can sound warm, patient, and professional over the phone, through chat, emails, or even a late-night teleconferencing call. But this is not enough for the global market that views these traits as only icing on the cake.

It is asking workers to understand instructions, interpret context, apply policies, document decisions, use digital tools, verify information, and explain ideas clearly to people who are not in the same room. It is asking for comprehension, critical, analytical, and even scientific skills.

This is where the warning lights are seen.

Fluent, but not always following

Ironic as it is, there is truth in the inference that being able to speak English does not necessarily translate to the ability to understand instructions, contexts, or the underlying meanings of what is being asked. Extemporaneous speaking activities in the training room gives this providence.

A humble, yet jarring, observation in the training room is the frequent use of sophisticated vocabulary to sound more fluent. This may have been caused by the force of habit in academic settings where students usually encounter highfalutin words to expand their vocabulary. The use of these words may sound impressive and may carry a sense of confidence. However, the real test is when the answer is dissected to reveal its weight and comprehensiveness.

“They often miss the actual question and give answers that sound impressive but are irrelevant to what was asked,” Mabanes said.

That distinction matters in BPO work. It matters even more in the wider virtual work economy.

The requirements for BPO and virtual work are very particular. Customer service representatives must be able to identify the customer’s underlying concern so that they do not call back for the same thing. They should also be able to provide the correct resolutions for the issues. Virtual assistants must be capable of reading a client brief correctly, lest they complete a task the client never asked for. A graphic artist who misunderstood a correction to the design might submit a draft with the incorrect specifications.

The Philippine conversation around virtual work often celebrates opportunity: dollar earnings, home-based jobs, flexible schedules, global clients, and the chance to escape the limits of local employment. All of that is real.

But underneath all this lies a very crucial question: Are enough Filipino workers being prepared for the kind of thinking that virtual work now requires?

Memorized, but not applied

Going back to the training room, Mabanes gave another example of an issue surrounding grammar.

Trainees manage to remember the basic rules of grammar, but oftentimes, the concept is not always applied.

A trainee may remember that singular subjects take singular verbs. But when answering a question, the trainee may choose a verb without an “s” because they remember only an oversimplified cue: singular means no “s.”

This is where the issue moves beyond English. A person can memorize a rule, a script, a workflow, or a policy and still struggle when the situation changes. Work rarely presents itself as a clean classroom item. Customers are upset. Clients are vague. Tools update. Policies have exceptions. A worker has to recognize what applies, what does not, and how to explain the decision.

Mabanes said this is one of the biggest comprehension challenges she sees among new trainees: applying information instead of simply remembering it. This, now, reinforces the need to strengthen critical thinking skills aside from just memorizing this.

As Rosario (2025) put it, “Critical thinking is necessary because it allows students to examine information, solve problems, and use knowledge creatively. Memorization allows students to recall facts but not necessarily understand or the ability to apply information in new contexts.”

Listening exercises and computer-based activities reveal the gap quickly. One example is the Global Communications Assessment, which measures grammar, listening, and reading comprehension. These tasks require trainees to process information independently. They cannot simply borrow confidence from the room.

The assessment exposes what the performance may hide.

Reading without meaning

Another pattern Mabanes cited is that reading seems to have become less common as a habit for people.

Many trainees are able to read the words, but the question on whether they truly understood what they had read still stands. She said that this becomes more telling when they read aloud. Conventionally, a reader would group words into meaningful thought units. However, as the case may be, trainees would read word after word. So technically, the sentence is read, but the meaning is not carried.

Anyone who has trained new workers will recognize the problem. There is a difference between decoding words and understanding a message. There is also a difference between understanding a message and being able to act on it.

Virtual work stretches that chain even further.

A worker may need to read a client’s message, infer what is missing, ask a clarifying question, check an SOP, compare it with previous instructions, complete the task, and write back in a way that sounds clear but not cold. That entire process begins with comprehension.

Without it, the worker becomes dependent on templates, scripts, and guesses.

Confidence can hide the gap

Interestingly, as Mabanes would put it, weak comprehension does not always look like fear.

This may be one of the most uncomfortable points in Mabanes’ responses. Trainees with weaker comprehension, she said, are often more confident in their answers. They would be more actively involved in discussions and provide defence of their incorrect responses as they genuinely believe they understand the material.

Some people may call it the Dunning-Kruger effect or the cognitive bias where people with limited knowledge or skills in a specific domain greatly overestimate their own competence. Although that might just be a harsh generalization.

Despite this, what is evident is that this trait is harder to correct because the first wall is not necessarily knowledge - it is the awareness that there is a gap. A hesitant trainee knows there is a gap. A confidently wrong trainee may not.

Mabanes responds by asking guiding questions instead of immediately giving the answer. When time allows, she lets trainees think through the problem. She connects lessons to real workplace situations so they can see why the skill matters. One of the most powerful questions she asks is simple:

“Why?”

The explanation gives the trainer the insights on the real depth of the trainee’s understanding. It tells the trainer whether the trainee actually achieved a good grasp of the concept or just concluded and answered with a guess.

This practice points to something that academic and employment institutions might need to strengthen - the need to develop learners and workers who are not only able to answer questions or concerns, but also able to explain and provide sufficient reasoning to their answers.

For the Philippines, this is not a small training-room concern. It is a warning light.

The country has built a service economy on the belief that its people can communicate with the world.

The harder question is whether enough future workers are equipped with the right skills to understand enough to keep the work.

This piece is one of a 3-part series on the possible impacts and implications of the current trends in the Philippine educational system, their gaps, and future applications to the employment pipeline.

References

• Bloomberg. (2023, August 7). AI, talent shortage pose dual threat to Philippine call centres. The Business Times. https://www.businesstimes.com.sg/international/asean/ai-talent-shortage-pose-dual-threat-philippine-call-centres

• Mabanes, M. J. (2026). Written interview responses on comprehension skills in BPO training. Unpublished interview.

• OECD. (2018). Education GPS - Philippines - Student performance (PISA 2018). Gpseducation.Oecd.Org. https://gpseducation.oecd.org/CountryProfile?primaryCountry=PHL&treshold=5&topic=PI

• Chi, C. (2023, December 6). Philippines still lags behind world in math, reading and science — PISA 2022. Philstar.Com. https://www.philstar.com/headlines/2023/12/06/2316732/philippines-still-lags-behind-world-math-reading-and-science-pisa-2022

• Rosario, Janna, Memorization is not Enough: Why Critical Thinking is Key in Science (June 04, 2025). Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=5282007 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.5282007