There are criticisms that most of the Senior High students who are not proceeding to college are simply not job-ready. The K-12 program of “work immersion” for two weeks cannot transform these students into skilled workers needed by industry. Accordingly, they should have at least 300-600 hours of “on-the-job training” or OJT. This is the minimum number of OJT hours required by Germany under its rigorous skills program for secondary students, which combines theory with industry practicum.
As it is, unemployment remains highest among the youth who have finished high school up to college. Given this reality on the supply side, industry labor recruiters in various regions are likely to give preference to young workers who have at least some years of college education on the assumption that they are more mature and have higher commitment to work compared to just high school finishers. Incidentally, unemployment among the elementary and secondary drop-outs is low because these workers cannot afford to be choosy or selective about jobs compared to those with basic or tertiary education. Those without basic education diplomas constitute the bulk of the country’s underemployed, meaning workers who occupy low-level jobs with limited compensation and protection.
So what can be done to make the K-12 program work and take off? Remember, the K-12 is an “education reform initiative” that was rushed and instituted by the Aquino Administration with limited preparation for the school system, teachers, parents and students.
As pointed out in previous articles, there are no easy answers. But there are some clear doables.
First, enhancing the employability of Senior High students is not the sole task of those managing the K-12 bureaucracy. The labor market has supply and demand sides. The institutions involved on both sides of the market must get involved and work together.
The suggestion that two weeks of “work immersion” under the K-12 curriculum be changed into 300-600 hours of OJT in a real industry setting sounds good except that such proposal can only accommodate so many students. Unlike Germany, the Philippines does not have a galaxy of industries that can serve as alternative classrooms for Senior High students. In most regions of the country, the economic universe is populated by solo, family, micro and small enterprises which cannot absorb any OJT trainees nor can they allow the students to occupy limited work spaces for 300-600 hours. Not surprisingly, in many provinces, the work immersion destinations for Senior High students have turned out to be government offices where some students are reported to have become experts in mixing coffee drinks for government bosses.
Also, jobs in the services sector, which predominates, does not need long OJT hours for students to acquire the required skills and work experience. Deploying Senior High students to work in fast-food chains as bus boys or girls for 600 hours with no compensation (in the name of training) opens the school system and the cooperating companies to charges of labor exploitation and even child labor, if the students are less than the legal working age of 18.
The point is that there is indeed an urgent need for policy coordination among the institutions involved on the supply and demand sides of the labor market. In fact, policy coordination is one of most neglected areas of the education-demand nexus. The absence of policy coordination, especially in the areas of curriculum development and employment planning, gives rise to issues of mismatches or lack of fit between jobs and job seekers.
This is why a consultative and coordinative body such as the proposed Government-Industry-Education Council or GIEC is a must. The GIEC should be set up at the national, regional and provincial/city levels. Industry in the GIEC should be interpreted in a broad sense, meaning it includes not only leaders of big industry and business establishments but also representatives of the farming sector, small business, social enterprises and other actors involved in investing and growing the economy of a particular region.
One job of the GIEC is to do “development mapping”, that is, map not only the economic and labor market changes in a given regional or provincial/city economy but also the emerging and likely trends in the economy (from local to global) that are likely to affect or influence the economic/employment and education situation in the said regional/provincial/city economy. This then can be the guide of education planners (not only for those in DepEd but also for those from TESDA and CHED) in their review of the curriculum, which should be increasingly geared to or aligned with the world of work. Incidentally, under the local autonomy law of 1991 and the proposed “federalization” of government, the job of preparing the local economic development blueprint, especially employment and human resource development plan for the local economy, is a mandated and fundamental task of local government executives and legislators.
On the other hand, the education planning process will never be easy for it entails a holistic approach and a better grasp of the economic and employment situation. As pointed out by the authors of K-12 education reform and the harmonized “trifocalization” of the education system involving DepEd, TESDA and CHED, education leaders should be able to develop a continuous and seamless pathway of learning that enables young people to move from secondary to higher education and vocational training while accumulating skills and work experiences throughout their lives. Part of the learning pathway is opportunity for entrepreneurship, which is very much needed in the farming sector and underdeveloped regions of the country.
Also part of the education planning is the challenge of how to provide career guidance, labor market information and counselling to Senior High students. How many high school graduates who leave the portals of the school without any idea of where to go after schooling? How many graduate who cannot even distinguish the difference between an “AB” and “BS”, let alone “MA” or “MS” degrees? How many high school graduates leave the school system with a deeper appreciation of how their local economy looks like and what are the job prospects for them?
In all of this, policy coordination, made possible through continuous consultation and dialogue among the social partners, is crucial. Hence, the importance of the GIEC. The dialogue-coordination process can become the platform in determining how education and skills development can become responsive to the changing needs of the national and local economy as well as life aspirations of the young work force. This platform of dialogue can also guide the experts in making skills certifications and in developing the standards under the Philippine qualifications framework that has been enacted into a law early this year.