Graduates of the K-12 curriculum are not hired immediately due to various reasons, Senator Sonny Angara said Sunday.

Angara believes the government show the example and hire graduates for clerical jobs and he adds that the private sector will eventually follow.

But he added that a concern is that graduates lack soft skills, which are not often taught but learned through interaction or school activities.

''That is what companies notice that the graduates of public schools and even private schools sometimes lack these skills,'' he said.

The Commission on Human Rights (CHR) said in a recent report that those who graduated under the COVID-19 period have difficulty in getting jobs, one of the reasons being they lack ''soft skills.''

For graduates of technical-vocational course, there should be a certificate showing the level of skill, added Angara.

“They go through skills training but they need certification. That’s what we see here. Even if you have skills training, our skills training system does not have a certification,'' he said.

''That’s why employers wonder what level of skills the K-12 graduates have. Because if you look at TESDA (Technical Education And Skills Development Authority), technical vocational graduates are given certifications for different levels,” he said.

The K-12 program, which aims to give graduates better chances to find jobs especially abroad, has been in force for ten years.

Angara believes that the K-12 program is not implemented well. He said an educational commission will present their findings in the next few weeks.

"I know that the DepEd (Department of Education) is trying to address this through their Matatag Program by simplifying the curriculum, making it less cluttered, Then, they should reduce the tasks of the teachers so they can focus or concentrate on the quality of teaching. Then, of course, teacher training is important,” he said.

Angara said they would provide recommendations to education agencies while the K-12 curriculum is under review.

“We have discussed the issues and we will give recommendations to DepEd, TESDA (Technical Education and Skills Development Authority), and all agencies of education. Including the Commission of Higher Education,” Angara said.

“One of the recommendations is to shorten the courses in college. Because that was one of the promises in the law on K-12, in the past decade. That in the four-year bachelor course they will remove..in the first year they have what they call general studies. Most of them are duplicates of subjects studied by senior high school students. So those subjects should be removed so that after three years, they could graduate,” he added. Jaspearl Tan/DMS