HERE’S one real problem facing senior high school graduates: credentials inflation. And it is one of the reasons why thousands of Filipinos are unemployed. This practice is pervasive in the Philippine economy.
Truth is, employers in this country do not trust the high school diploma, not even the senior high school graduation diploma. And they’re saying this already even when senior high school students have not yet graduated and gone through their employment screening processes.
Credentials inflation is a different kind of jobs mismatch. It is the practice or belief system that makes an employer – whether an individual, company, institution, or group – require academic credentials that are more than what is really needed for a particular job or range of jobs.
The employers and business sector have already prejudged our senior high school students. That is blatant discrimination. They have not even given them the chance to prove themselves, to show what they can do.
True, some of the senior high school graduates will be accepted in the colleges and universities they will apply to, but some will not pass the entrance examinations or do not have money to pay for tuition in private colleges and universities, and therefore have to find work or be young entrepreneurs. That’s the idea behind the K-12 program.
For sure, many unsuccessful job-hunting senior high school graduates would be asking the following: Why would a college degree be needed to qualify as sales personnel at a convenience store or sales outlet? Is a college degree really necessary to be a technician at an auto detailing shop? To work as a nursing assistant, caregiver, or a teacher’s assistant, is the bachelor’s degree truly necessary? For the job of cooking hamburgers and French fries, must the applicant be a college graduate? To become a customer service representative in a business process outsourcing company, what are the competencies needed and are those competences represented fairly by a college degree?
Influential associations of businesses such as the Philippine Chamber of Commerce and Industry and the Employers Confederation of the Philippines could lead in the re-examination of the situation and rethink the industries’ value systems. Senior high graduates do not deserve to be the objects of prejudice and discrimination when they try to enter the world of work. They should be given a fair chance to prove the worth.
Didn’t the architects of the K-12 program think about this situation? But that’s another editorial.
