To boost the country’s employment rate, the Senate Committee on Finance accepted a proposal for the government to fund the certification of Grade 12 learners under the technical-vocational-livelihood (TVL) program.
Senator Sherwin Gatchalian said the proposed allocation will cover more than 420,900 Grade 12 TVL learners.
Gatchalian earlier flagged what he called a “dead end” for senior high school learners who took the TVL track.
Based on the Department of Education (DepEd) data for school year 2020-2021, only 6.7 percent or 32,965 out of 473,911 TVL graduates underwent the assessment for national certification.
Among those who took the national certification, 31,933 or 97 passed.
“The only constraint why they are not taking the national certification assessment is the cost, which ranges from P760 to P1,370,” said Gatchalian, chairman of the Senate Committee on Basic Education.
“This is a low-hanging fruit to improve the employability of our senior high school graduates, and this is to fund their certification,” Gatchalian noted.
The senator recommended the allocation of P438.16 million under the Technical Education and Skills Development Authority’s (TESDA) development regulatory program for the assessment and certification of senior high school learners.
Research by the senator’s office also revealed that 50 percent of senior high school TVL graduates are employed in elementary occupations, the lowest level of occupational category in terms of skills requirement.
These include street vendors, cleaners, domestic helpers, car and windows washers, and street sweepers.
For Gatchalian, this is another reflection of the educational system’s failure to fulfil the promise of preparing senior high school graduates for employment or entrepreneurship.