‘What about my son who’s so poor he just wants a job, any job?’

QUESTION: I thank God He gave me a son who’s just in third year high school but already wants to work so he can help me. But then here’s that K-to-12 basic education change that will add 2 more years to his high school. Plus the 4 years he must spend for college and that makes for 7 years before he can work and help me.

I’m a solo parent and I’m not at all proud where I get the money to support my son, who still has to go to school for three more years, not to mention the four years of college before he can get a decent job.

I just want to stop what I’m doing for a living and my son also wants me to stop.

My son goes to a public high school in Quezon City, but he is at the top of his class. His teachers tell him he can easily win a college scholarship. For his social study class, he likes reporting about your column. He referred me to your column of last Friday about students seeking a job in a “socially responsible company.”

Those must be some rich kids who can afford such a job.

My son can’t afford that kind of a job. I want him, and he wants, to just get a good job so he can help me.

He has such a high respect for your column. He told me to write you and ask if you can help advise our kind. Will you please?

Answer: Allow me to thank you for your courage in writing. I can imagine how much you must have agonized in deciding to follow your son’s wish to write me. I do wish to help your “kind.” I also apologize if I did not accurately translate into English your e-mail in Pilipino.

I’m now working at one of the Bayan Academy foundations helping MSMEs (micro-, small and medium enterprises). The academy is also helping the Department of Education (DepEd) with the “strategic planning of the senior high school.” The added 2 years has now come to be known as “senior high school.”

According to DepEd’s evolving documents and research, if your thoughtful and responsible son wants to get an immediate job, he does not have to wait until he finishes college. His two years as a senior high school graduate is enough to get him gainfully employed. Let me explain how this is so.

Bayan Academy has a contract to help DepEd in “preparing for the implementation of the senior high school in Quezon City.” This should be of particular interest to you because you and your son are in Quezon City. For this preparatory stage, the QC DepEd conducted first a serious and carefully designed 2014 survey of both public schools’ administrators and students in QC’s 6 districts. One of the primary objectives of the survey was to uncover how the QC public schools can align their senior high school “track offerings” with those of the students. Specifically, these public schools intend to align their “senior high school basic orientation for Grade 9 students” to those students’ “preferred career path.”

The survey defined 4 such career paths or track offerings. These were: the academic track; the technical, vocational, livelihood track; the sports track; and the arts and design track. The academic track is made up of 4 “strands:” STEM (science, technology, engineering, mathematics); ABM (accountancy, business, management); HUMSS (humanities and social science); and Liberal Arts.

Have a talk with your son and find out which strand in this academic track he prefers. If there’s one, keep note of this and, if none, go on to the next track.

The second track is the technical, vocational, livelihood track made up of many strands. The survey showed that the following six were the most popular choices among the surveyed students: food and beverage services; computer programming; bread and pastry production; animation; housekeeping; and electrical installation and maintenance.

One of the reasons for this popularity is the “immediacy of employment.”

If your son, as you said, wants a job immediately and you support this idea, he should find his preferred job choice in one of these strands. If so, then he should make the necessary arrangements with his public senior high school counselor.

According to the survey, the third and fourth tracks (the arts-and-design track, and the sports track respectively) were the surveyed students preferred tracks of only 10 percent and 7 percent, respectively.

So you may want to have that talk with your son about the preceding two tracks and strand sets.

It always pays to know the detailed facts of your choice. There are certain hard realities about the K-to-12, the senior high school, and the opportunities for immediate employment for your son that becloud your thinking and decision-making.

I hope the foregoing has helped.

Keep your questions coming. Send them to me at [email protected].