1 in 4 Philippine graduates took up business courses

MANILA, Philippines — Over a million students finished business and related courses from 2002 to 2012, topping the latest list of graduates from the Commission on Higher Education.

The 1,088,202 graduates with business-related degrees make up almost a fourth of the 4,481,572 total number of graduates in 10 school years.

The number of students graduating from business-related courses has dwindled from over 100,000 from 2002 to 2005 to an average of 94,000 from 2005 to 2008, but the count picked up again starting 2009 to over 106,000 to 141,000 in 2012.

Graduates from medical and allied fields, meanwhile, placed second at 881,778, while the 436,969 who took up education and teaching training ranked third.

Following the numbers are engineering and technology graduates at 507,368, information technology graduates at 436,969, maritime graduates at 127,524, social and behavioral science graduates at 129,720 and those who took up agricultural, forestry, fisheries at 118,645.

Those granted with degrees related to mathematics, religion and theology, trade, craft and industrial practices and home economics, meanwhile, have been less than 20,000 each per discipline within the ten school years.