THE GOVERNMENT must focus on providing work experience to make K-to-12 graduates more job ready, labor experts said, after the Palace noted the program’s failure to prepare students for the workplace.
“Primarily, on-the-job training. Not all programs are offering this. It is needed to give students the exposure to actual work experience,” Maria Ella Calaor-Oplas, an economics professor specializing in human capital development research at De La Salle University, said via Messenger chat.
She added that the government should incentivize the private sector to take in K-to-12 students as interns.
“They can come up with a Magna Carta for K-to-12 interns that includes incentives to companies who will take them in and employ them later,” Ms. Oplas said.
She added that more collaboration is needed to ensure students in senior high school programs have internship places.
“It should also be noted that the economy is not able to provide decent work options and opportunities for K-to-12 graduates who desire to work already and not proceed to higher education,” Benjamin Velasco, assistant professor at the UP Diliman School of Labor and Industrial Relations, said via Facebook chat.
“The K-to-12 program cannot deliver on the goal of employability alone since improving their employment options requires a package of policies, among them industrial policy,” Mr. Velasco added.
He said business process outsourcing or virtual assistant jobs are among the best options for new graduates.
“Apart from these, there are hardly any good work opportunities where K-to-12 graduates can find jobs that pay well and offer benefits,” he added.
He said that the Philippines currently does not systematically identify the key industries where more jobs can be generated.
“Instead, we have left the private sector to direct ‘economic development’ and investments have poured into real estate development, for example, which hardly generates decent jobs,” he added.
The K-to-12 program was adopted following the passage of Republic Act No. 10533, or the Enhanced Basic Education Act of 2013, adding two more years to basic education with the intent of making senior high school graduates employable and globally competitive. — Adrian H. Halili
