K to 12?

It’s graduation time for many schools this week. The Commission on Higher Education reported that 553,706 college students will graduate this school year. Let’s hope the figures don’t pull up the unemployment rate which was 6.6% in the first quarter of 2015 from 6.00% in the fourth quarter of 2014 (according to the National Statistics Office or NSO). The latest survey conducted by the Social Weather Stations (SWS) showed that the country’s unemployment rate hit 27% – equivalent to 12.4 million jobless Filipinos in the last quarter of 2014.

The report also stated that this adult joblessness rate consisted of those who resigned or voluntarily left their old jobs (14 percent, or 6.5 million adults), those who involuntarily lost their jobs due to economic circumstances beyond their control – previous contracts not renewed, employers closed operation, and were laid off – (nine percent, or 4.3 million adults), and those who were first-time job-seekers (three percent or 1.5 million adults).

The report brought 2014’s joblessness rate average to 25.4 %, slightly higher than the 2013’s annual average of 25.2 %. But despite this, the same survey was said to have found more Filipinos who are optimistic that work would become available in the next 12 months. At the rate things are going on now, with the government totally immersed on finding the truth about the Mamasapano massacre and forgetting about basic problems affecting our everyday lives, the future looks grim for the unemployed. This will be further aggravated with the additional 2015 graduates. Quo vadis our dear graduates?

Employment measures a country’s economic stability. In our country, the highest employment records in recent years are in call centers, IT companies, and caregiving services. It would seem then, that nobody wants to work in our public hospitals, and nobody wants to till the land as an agriculturist. Yes, we need more teachers, more doctors, and more nurses. But why do they still leave the country after graduation? How can we stop this exodus?

In the past years, the number of graduates in a certain field was more than the demands in the job market. As a result, many became jobless. The lopsided pattern of courses offered was evident 10 years ago when many college students joined the bandwagon of pursuing a nursing degree or a culinary degree and forgot about other fields of interest and the demands of the workforce in the country.

By now, we must have realized that adequate education and skills increase the ability to innovate and adopt new technologies. They make the difference between inclusive growth and growth that leaves large segments of society behind. A workforce that has been properly trained and is able to continue learning boosts investor confidence and result in job growth. This in turn will be good for the economy.

The Philippine Star reported last week that: graduates topping the list are from: Business Administration and related courses (142,061), followed by Medical and Allied disciplines (110,280), Information Technology (68,178), Education and Teacher Training (65,092), Engineering and Technology (61,786) and other disciplines (26,298). A total of 18,725 are graduates of Maritime followed by Social and Behavioral Science (13,144); Agriculture, Forestry, Fisheries and Veterinary Medicine (9,109); Service Trades (8,283); Mass Communication and Documentation (6,153); Humanities (5,362); Natural Science (4,171); and Law and Jurisprudence (2,870). Graduates of Architectural and Town Planning number 2,268 followed by Mathematics majors (2,094), general courses (1,863), Religion and Theology (1,280) and Trade, Craft and Industrial (403).

These figures once again show that the trend remains the same. Top courses three years ago are still the same at the present time. And if this remains for a long time, the unemployment problem of the country will worsen.

This is why the Department of Education, TESDA and CHED are working together to improve our educational system thereby improving the chances of employment for our graduates.

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An update of the Department of Education’s K to 12 program shows us that our vision of the Philippine educational program in paper has an encouraging future in terms of upgrading academic skills and qualifications of high school graduates under this program.

So far, the only hitch or possible disaster is when DepEd embarks on its implementation phase after this coming school year. We have one more year to prepare before the first senior year of the K to 12 program begins. So, what is the problem? To start off, it is a very expensive program to create. Contrary to what DepEd requires on the qualifications of the teachers (a bachelor’s degree and 15 units on their specialized subject plus SHS training), we still need teachers who can teach the pre-collegiate ‘specialized’ subjects, undergraduate degree holders may have difficulty in teaching. Next, the construction of classrooms and laboratories for the senior years is quite expensive. So this endeavor needs more time and a good budget.

There are more than twenty-four million basic education students (as reported in 2013). Twenty million of the students belong to the public schools while three million belong to the private schools. The government has now come up with a Voucher System because it has realized that they cannot accommodate the public school senior high school students for a few years until they have constructed the infrastructure required for the SHS program. Therefore, they have enjoined the private schools to accommodate their students thru the SHS Voucher program. I am not sure if this will really work since there are way too many public school students and schools compared to private schools.

It seems that DepEd bit more than they can chew. Now they rely and expect the private schools to pick up the pieces when the dust settles – which is almost impossible for the private schools to take on. The private schools already have their own concerns to tackle to ensure giving quality SHS curricula to their students. Now, DepEd is looking at the private schools to save them from the very monster they created. Susmariosep!

Killing the SHS program at this point in time is not healthy for the country. Many schools have already planned out their actions to be able to implement this program. I think that a few adjustments, cooperation and understanding between DepEd and the schools should be done to achieve the goal. Just like in basketball, we are on the last two minutes of the game. Any opposition should have been done a long time ago. What can we do, even if we are not so happy with how it all began and were forced to follow due to government requirements and directives, the show must go on. Clearly, it should make our people more learned and functional members of society. –Sara Soliven de Guzman (The Philippine Star)