Press Release
March 16, 2008

Jinggoy wants "job-skill matching strategy" in RP education; warns of another employment uncertainty for many of this year's graduates

Senate President Pro Tempore Jinggoy Ejercito Estrada today called on Malacañang to devise and implement a comprehensive job-skill matching strategy in the country's education system to enable students to acquire skills that are most in-demand for local and overseas employment, as he warned of another uncertainty of employment among graduates this year.

This developed as the Bureau of Labor and Statistics (BLES) reported that nearly 6,000 commercial establishments in the country, especially in Metro Manila, expressed difficulties in filling various job openings because applicants "lack the needed skills."

BLES said majority of employers wanted, among others: revisions in the country's education curriculum to focus on key subjects, as well as more government investments on human resources and subsidies to private education or more scholarship grants in critical courses.

Estrada, concurrent chair of the Senate Committee on Labor, Employment and Human Resources Development, and of the Joint Congressional Oversight Committee on Labor and Employment, earlier warned of a "deepening crisis on skilled manpower, posing a major problem for the national economy,"

"Every year, we are producing millions of graduates, but fewer and fewer skilled ones are able to get employment in local and overseas industries. This year, another batch of our young citizens will be graduating from school, but are they equipped with the needed skills for employment?" Estrada said, as he noted the report by the National Statistics Office last year that 1.1 million college graduates were among the 2.8 million jobless in the country.

"We must come up with doable action plans to ensure that the country's educational and technical-vocational (tech-voc) curricula are geared toward developing skills most in-demand for local and overseas jobs," he added.

Estrada earlier specifically suggested a trainee-and-apprenticeship program for 3rd-to-4th year high school students to help them in choosing career paths; an 18-month similar program, but with pay, for graduates of tech-voc courses to enhance their skills; and a "Technical Education Charge (TEC)" loan program for students and out-of-school youths who would take up tech-voc courses and pay the loans after getting jobs in the country or abroad, with a minimal interest of about 12% per year.

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