K-12 promise of job-ready graduates failed — Romulo

Graduates of senior high school under the K-12 program have not been able to land jobs as originally promised, House Committee on Basic Education chairman Roman Romulo of Pasig City said Saturday.

The Pasig City lawmaker made the statement as Congress moves to recalibrate the landmark education reform based on findings and recommendations from the Second Congressional Commission on Education (EDCOM 2).

“The commitment at that time was that once you finish Grade 12, you are job-ready and college-ready. You yourselves can answer that this did not happen,” Romulo said at a weekend Saturday Media Forum at Dapo Restaurant in Quezon City.

Romulo issued the remarks as he reacted to the findings and recommendations of EDCOM 2, as lawmakers weigh reforms to the K-12 system rather than its outright repeal, amid mounting evidence that senior high school graduates remain ill-prepared for employment straight out of Grade 12.

As discussions shifted to why that pledge did not materialize, Romulo pointed to the structure of senior high school itself, explaining how enrollment patterns across tracks undermined the original intent of producing job-ready graduates at scale.

“On job readiness, there are four tracks: academic, tech-voc, arts and music, and sports. In reality, less than one percent are enrolled in sports. In arts, about one to two percent. In tech-voc, around 30 to 36 percent are enrolled there… around 50 to 52 percent, more or less, are in the academic track,” he said.

Romulo explained that the distribution meant only a fraction of students were positioned to benefit from the job-ready promise, and even among those in the technical-vocational track, structural gaps remained between schooling and real employability.

“If those in the tech-voc track are to be job-ready, TESDA and DepEd should be working together there,” Romulo said.

He then pointed to certification as a critical missing link between skills training and actual work readiness.

“What do we give most Grade 12 completers as a national certificate? Isn’t it just NC2? National Certificate 2,” he said.

“So if you have NC2, you have skills, but you cannot work independently. So you are not job-ready,” Romulo added.