pathoff← All countries for special & vocational

Special & vocational

Philippines

The country that trains a quarter of the world’s seafarers, and a fifth of its nurses.

4/5
ingredients confirmed
Still unknown: tuition
Living
36.2% of US prices
A comparison of prices, not a budget: it says what things cost here against the United States, not what a month will cost you. Compared at country level, so capital cities and large metros run higher. The price level prices the basket residents buy, and a foreign renter cannot reach the cheap end of local housing — poorer countries may still sit too low here.
Field reputation
A name in maritime and nursing
Industry access
The training exports; working here does not follow from it
Safety
2.092 · 102nd of 163
Low on the index; the score is driven by long-running internal conflict and by crime rates rather than by conditions in the expatriate districts

More is being checked.

Where these figures came from

One row per ingredient. Open any of them for the source, how far we trust it, and when we last checked.

TuitionNo data yet

No figure recorded. No published fee schedule for a Philippine maritime, nursing or specialist training institution charging foreign students could be confirmed at tier 1 or tier 2, and the tier 3 material described university programmes rather than vocational training. See the Pathoff method, section 14-5.

Confidence
no figure
Living36.2% of US prices

World Bank, 2024, CC BY 4.0: the PPP conversion factor for household consumption is 20.7435 local currency units per international dollar, against an official exchange rate of 57.2907 to the US dollar. Their ratio, 0.362, is the price level against the United States, whose own ratio is 1 by construction. Both figures are theirs; the division is ours. See the Pathoff method, section 12.

A comparison of prices, not a budget: it says what things cost here against the United States, not what a month will cost you. Compared at country level, so capital cities and large metros run higher. The price level prices the basket residents buy, and a foreign renter cannot reach the cheap end of local housing — poorer countries may still sit too low here.

Confidence
made by us from the source
Field reputationA name in maritime and nursing

Pathoff education rubric (the Pathoff method, section 9-2), special band "Internationally credible": Maritime and nursing training here is recognised and hired from at scale worldwide. At the foot of the band because the recognition attaches to the country’s labour supply rather than to named schools, and European maritime regulators have repeatedly reviewed the certification system.

Confidence
made by us from the source
Industry accessThe training exports; working here does not follow from it

Pathoff outcome rubric (the Pathoff method, section 10-3), special outcome band "A route that needs an employer": Judged on its own. The paradox is worth stating plainly — the qualification is designed to be used abroad, and using it in the Philippines requires an employer and a permit that tests whether a Filipino could do the job instead.

Confidence
made by us from the source
Rule
No change known to us
Last checked
2026-09
Safety2.092 · 102nd of 163

Global Peace Index 2026, Institute for Economics and Peace: score 2.092, ranked 102 of 163. Both figures are theirs; we publish them as they are.

Low on the index; the score is driven by long-running internal conflict and by crime rates rather than by conditions in the expatriate districts

Confidence
printed in the source

What it is like here

This is not a marginal sector: Philippine maritime academies and nursing schools supply labour markets across the world, and the qualifications are recognised in places that recognise almost nothing else from here. What we could not establish is what a foreign student pays for that training, and the route to working in the Philippines afterwards is the same employer-and-labour-market-test one a degree faces.

How the process works

1

Check where the qualification is meant to be used

These programmes are built for export; that is their strength and their limit.

Timing not confirmed

Where the training is

Manila / Cebu / Iloilo
The maritime academies and the nursing schools

Open any ingredient above to see where its figure came from, how far we trust it and when we last checked. Nothing here is a substitute for the official source. Last reviewed 2026-09-04.

Photograph of Philippines by Bahnfrend, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.