More funds set aside for student employment

THE Department of Labor and Employment has earmarked P340 million budget for short-term work to be offered to 140,000 students this year.

Labor Secretary Rosalinda Baldoz said the department’s thrusts for 2012 is to strengthen the Special Program for the Education of Students, saying the program last year effectively served national efforts towards poverty reduction and the preparation of the countrys underprivileged youth for productive employment.

Baldoz said the program will benefit 140,000 poor but deserving students all over the country.

The amount is higher by P39 million or 13 percent than last year’s outlay for 119,045 “SPES babies,” as the beneficiaries are called, Baldoz said in a press conference..

Baldoz pointed out that the 119,045 students placed in short-term jobs during the summer and Christmas breaks in 2011 constituted the highest number of poor students under SPES, higher by more than one-third over the 77,727 SPES beneficiaries in 2010.

Baldoz, who also sits as the chairman of the Technical Education and Skills Development Authority said that the SPES, together with the TESDA’s Kasanayan sa Hanapbuhay project, comprises the DoLEs employment bridging assistance for the Filipino youth.

TESDA’s KaSH allocation for 2012 is P1.344 billion, or 47.1 percent of the agency’s P2.854 billion budget for 2012. –Vito Barcelo, Manila Standard Today