When the Philippine government embarked on a radical journey on 2012 when it adopted and implemented the K-12 curriculum, it promised not only lifelong learning but likewise skills to prepare its youth for the tertiary level and hence for a better and more promising career. The reform on the curriculum, the additional two years of basic education and the current essential movements within the education sector are conceived for the purpose of, to sum it all up, career readiness.
The Career Readiness Partner Council, a coalition of education, policy, business, and philanthropic organizations formed in 2012 contends that there is an often-confusing mix of definitions, frameworks, policies and implementation strategies for career readiness. Some viewpoints center around learning skills for a specific entry-level job, while others define career readiness as a broader understanding of workplace skills. Still, other definitions focus on knowledge and skills for a particular industry sector such as health sciences or marketing. Career readiness is a convergence of all of these definitions. The CPRC further suggests that career readiness is predicated on a person’s ability to adapt to and adopt a process of lifelong learning.
“A career-ready person effectively navigates pathways that connect education and employment to achieve a fulfilling, financially-secure and successful career.”
Pathways to college and career readiness incorporate an important focus on what have been identified as 21st century skills: critical thinking and problem solving, collaboration, communication, and creativity and innovation. Experts agree that to be career ready, students must possess core academic skills, such as English and Math, and they must be capable of applying those skills in context. They must also have the necessary skills to effectively navigate the 21st century workplace and the technical, job-specific skills that enable them to succeed in a particular job or career pathway. (Junior Achievement USA, 2013)
Reality-wise, most Filipino students, college graduate or not, do not immediately end up having the careers they trained and studied for or even dreamed of having. It is highly probable that some of them would start somewhere else where their hard skills are not necessary. This is an unfortunate yet undeniable existing scenario in our market or even in the world economy. Hence, considering that our capability to cope up with the demands of the growing labor market depends on the abilities of our students, efforts to educate or train them should not focus on one particular area of expertise alone. Basic soft skills used in a broad scope must be given with equal importance and should be strengthened along the developmental stages of our students. Career readiness which will give them the flexibility and ability to easily adapt to the needs and challenges that may be presented by any workplace and to adopt new skills required by the workplace is necessary in order for our youth to competitively and efficiently perform in any chosen or designated task.
What our country needs are young people with a wide range set of skills, both academic skills and the ability to apply these skills and knowledge in the workplace. In the end, the K to 12 curriculum hopes to produce high school graduates who are lifelong learners ready to enter college or the manpower pool. This curriculum holds promising opportunities for us to better prepare our students and give them a higher chance of attaining not the desired future but a desirable future.
However, the K-12 curriculum is still young and much is needed for it to completely bloom. Therefore, stakeholders need to constantly monitor its growth to ensure that it evolves into something which it is expected to be and that the track it is currently taking is aligned with its vision. This curriculum possesses a lot of potential and in order to maximize it, rigorous efforts should be exerted even in the earliest stage to lead it in its greater glory toward a purpose to which it is designed.
REFERENCES:
Junior Achievement USA. (2013). The Role of Common Core Standards in College and Career Readiness Education, https://www.juniorachievement.org/documents/ 20009/36541/The+Roll+of+Common+Core+Standards.pdf/274c78bd-2dd4-407f-9050-78243ef836e9.Retrieved 26 April 2014.
Career Readiness Partner Council. (2013). Building Blocks for Change: What it Means to be Career-Ready. https://www.dpi.state.nd.us/standard/CRPC_4pagerB.pdf. Retrieved 26 April 2014.
By: Samuel A. Quiroz | Teacher II | Emilio C. Bernabe High School | Bagac, Bataan
