Education: Creating a World Class Filipino.
The BPO Party is going to initiate and manage a fundamental shift in education. It is our intent to create a competitive Filipino.
What is the objective of K – 12 education? What do we hope to achieve? K-12 is supposed to make our youth more easily employable upon graduation.
Prior to K-12, data shows that a good percentage of our high school graduates were found to lack the skill sets needed to get employed, they simply fall short of basic employer expectations especially in soft skills and critical thinking.
We fear that K12 does not address the shortcomings.
We are aware that K12 has only recently been implemented last 2014, and, although it may be premature to call for a complete revamp of the new curriculum, we feel that a review ought to be done to determine if K-12 is effective.
For if it turns out that the new system still falls short of the goal of achieving good employ-ability of our youth, then we would have done an injustice to the first crop of K12 graduates, who having spent an additional two years of education, may be found to still be devoid of the skills needed to be hired by formal sector employers.
We will nonetheless propose to revise and/or replace some of the subjects that we teach our children with courses that more relevant and for the removal of subjects/courses that are not relevant to achieving employment.
We envision a curriculum containing innovative new subjects that combine learnings essential to succeeding in the global jobs arena. A Conversational English subject, Business/Finance/Entrepreneurial studies, IT/Computer Sciences/Web navigation subject, a Basic Sciences class (Biology, Mathematics, Physics and Chemistry) World Studies and a Social Discipline class as part of the new breed of subjects.
We also want to see a shift in the direction of higher education, veering away from diploma mill courses such as Mass Communications, Commerce, Business Administration and the like.
We want to see a re-channeling of education funds to students enrolling in cutting edge IT/Computer Sciences, Engineering, the Sciences, Specialized Medicine, Engineering and other courses where we have a shortage of the warm bodies that our country needs to not only to sustain our growth but also to remain competitive in the global economy.
The Party is looking at DOST/TESDA as a valuable tool in transitioning our youth from joblessness/under employment to gainfully employed by offering them financial incentives to enroll in training courses targeted at filling up specific employment gaps in the economy or where the supply of locally available specialized manpower has diminished thereby limiting sectoral growth, a case in point would be the medical care industry and the IT/BPO industry.
We need to anticipate where there will be a shortage of qualified manpower in other economic growth areas like tourism and have the ability to quickly resolve manpower shortages caused by sustained multi-year market growth, witness the shortage of qualified mechanics in the automotive industry. Training that will always be in partnership with industry stakeholders.
Another potential growth area would be in healthcare where we foresee massive growth to take place when universal healthcare becomes a reality. In which case, modified care-giving courses may be needed to transition our youth into healthcare workers