Vice President and Education Secretary Sara Z. Duterte on Wednesday appealed to the business sector to prioritize hiring senior high school graduates and move away from the old "diploma mentality" that the K to 12 program aims to break.

Grade 12 graduates should be given job opportunities, the Vice President added.

"Our Grade 12 graduates are not immediately employable, and the labor sector does not hire them. According to the Commission on Higher Education, there is a diploma mentality in our country that you must be a graduate of a four-year course to be employed by our industry," Duterte said in her keynote speech during the 48th Philippine Business Conference and Expo organized by the Philippine Chamber of Commerce and Industry at the Manila Hotel.

Duterte said the Department of Education is already working on how to make Grade 12 graduates more employable and skills-ready when they graduate from the K to 12 programs.

"We are continuing our meetings and discussions on how to prepare our Grade 12 graduates for employment," she said.

"So, we hope to see the support of your sector in making sure that our Grade 12 graduates are hired and employed by the industry," the Vice President added.

She, however, clarified that this is not for this school year because they are still working on all the suggestions given by the Department of Labor and Employment and the Commission on Higher Education.

"So, we are still working on something we need to fix in the K to 12 programs for our graduates," the Vice President added.

The DepEd is currently reviewing the skills-matching aspect of the senior high school (Grades 11 and 12) curriculum to ensure that the students are employable when they graduate.