Employment program for students costly—study

By BusinessMirror, Oct 28, 2017

The Special Program for the Employment of Students (Spes) of the Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) is costly but with minimal impact on education and employability to its beneficiaries.

This was according to an impact-evaluation study conducted by Innovations for Poverty Action (IPA), a nonprofit policy research organization, to evaluate the effectiveness of the program.

The SPES is an employment-bridging program of the DOLE that aims to augment the income of poor but deserving students, out-of-school youths (OSYs), or dependents of displaced workers who intend to finish education. The employment lasts for 20 to 52 working days during school break.

It is open to all qualified high school, college or vocational/technical students, and OSYs. The Public Service Employment Offices facilitates the matching, with the DOLE providing 40 percent wage subsidy to employers. In 2016 alone, the program had a budget of over P700 million and provided jobs to over 200,000 beneficiaries.

In her presentation at a recent forum organized by state think tank Philippine Institute for Development Studies, Dr. Emily Beam, associate professor at Vermont University and lead researcher of the IPA study, disclosed that implementing SPES comes at a high cost for the Philippine government. She noted that although SPES costs P3,561 per beneficiary, the cost could go higher if the main objective of the program, which is to prevent students from dropping out or to encourage OSYs to re-enroll and graduate and eventually find meaningful jobs in the future, is considered.

“The DOLE spends P222,600 per student that drops out, given that 1.6 in every 100 beneficiaries of the program are prevented from dropping out of school in a given year,” she explained. She added that for every 100 SPES beneficiaries, only 3.9 are employed, at a cost of P91,318 per eventual job found.

According to Beam, SPES does not increase enrollment in schools nor improve college graduation rate because enrollment rate is already high at 95 percent. She added that SPES applicants will enroll in school regardless if they are chosen to receive SPES or not.

On the other hand, she noted that SPES increases enrollment for males, who are at a higher risk of dropping out of school. During the course of the study, it was observed that only a third of SPES beneficiaries were men.

Furthermore, Beam pointed out that lower-income students may benefit more from SPES. “Among those not enrolled, the most common reason was financial in nature. There wasn’t a case where not having benefited from SPES was the reason for dropping out,” Beam explained.

Thus, it was recommended that improving the targeting system for SPES could maximize program effectiveness.

“Male students from poorer families and high school students get greatest educational benefits from SPES. Refining the program targeting through adjustments in the screening criteria or outreach methods may help SPES reach those who benefit the most,” Beam suggested.

In terms of the impact of SPES on employability of beneficiaries, the study showed minimal gains. According to Beam, SPES participants are not being given meaningful jobs that could enhance their skills and employability in the future. In addition, it was noted that participation in the SPES does not affect students’ self-esteem or self-reported life skills in the medium run.

“Nearly all SPES participants are engaged in office work in local government units, doing tasks such as answering phones, surveying, encoding, and organizing and filing, with some doing purely make-work tasks, such as maintaining the orderliness of the office,” she elaborated.

Meanwhile, Beam noted that participation in the SPES improves students’ confidence about their work prospects after graduation. However, the experience does not affect their wage perceptions.

Thus, the study maintained that SPES may be more effective as a work program rather than an education program in the medium run. However, it cautioned that costs of implementing such program remain high.

It also recommended for program implementers to resolve payment delays to help students use earnings to fund their education. According to the study, less than half of the beneficiaries received their salary within one month after participating in SPES, with some still waiting for their payment nine months after their employment ended. Implementers must also explore ways for students to gain meaningful skills from their work experience as SPES beneficiaries. Directly providing students with life-skills training or job-search training may be low cost and more successful, the study suggested.