Education Secretary Leonor Briones advised graduating senior high school (SHS) students to choose carefully the field they want to proceed among the four curriculums of K-12 education.
Briones said the new K-12 curriculum has already two years of basic college education in academics, arts and design, sports and technical-vocational (tech-voc).
“Our present curriculum is very diverse. Gone are the old days when students need to endure four-year college education because there are two years of basic education in four areas that students can choose from,” the secretary told The Manila Times in an interview.
However, based on independent studies conducted by different groups, like the Philippine Institute for Development Studies, 70 percent of SHS students who finished 12-year basic education still chose academic-related courses rather than the three other areas.
Among the three other areas, she said she sees the biggest potential in tech-voc as this area was so wide, thus the potential to earn big was also very big.
She said a graduate of a tech-voc course could choose from being an automotive mechanic to electronics technician to welder, which are all very in demand skills both here and abroad.
“Most students still prefer the old mode of studying engineering, law, hotel and restaurant, management and accounting. They don’t realize the potential to become more successful if they chose the three other areas,” she added.
She also corrected speculations that dropout rate was high as it was only 1 out of 10 students who decides not to continue high school education because of the need to work to help in the family.
As of 2016, Briones said, the dropout rate was about 1 million a year, which was comparatively low than the 24 million elementary and high school students in public schools all over the country as of 2018.
Enrollees in elementary and high school in private schools as of 2018 reached 5.4 million.
