PIA Press Release
Sunday, January 22, 2012

Samar solon urges the public to support K + 12

Representative Mel Senen Sarmiento of Samar’s first district said that K +12 is an answer to the low employability of our college graduates.

“Our high school graduates are not yet mature,” he told the more than 100 education summiteers in Tacloban City.

“Look at the better schools like Ateneo and La Salle, theirs is a 12-year program,” he added.

The Samar solon went on to say that these schools are able to produce students that are easily absorbed by the labor force.

Sarmiento, who has always shown his support to education even as a mayor of Calbayog City, said he had the public school in mind in the K+ 12 advocacy.

“Why deprive the public school students quality education?” he asked.

Sarmiento went on to say that even our college graduates are not employable and sorely lack employability skills.

He cited statistics that show unemployment for college graduates in the Philippines.

When the government implements K+12, it will paint a better picture in the labor market, the solon seemed to say.

“Anak hin kablas, pag graduate ha senior high, employable na. (Children from poor families upon graduation in senior high can then be employed.),” the lawmaker passionately argued.

And if they are not employed, at least they may have learned the necessary entrepreneurial skills like the Chinese, Sarmiento said.

The K+12 program hopes to improve the quality of high school graduates by adding two more years to the current 10-year basic curriculum. It guarantees that every graduate of this program will be employable and has benefitted from a reformed and updated curriculum focused on enabling every student to achieve mastery of core competencies and skills.

In his final plea, Sarmiento said that the public and the government should adjust to the changing times, that popular decisions are not necessarily the best.

It seemed that K+12 is not a popular decision, according to him. (PIA 8-Samar)