Education Secretary Sonny Angara said Tuesday that more exposure to work immersion would boost the employability of Senior High School (SHS) graduates in the country.

This is in line with the directive of President Ferdinand R. Marcos Jr. to address the country’s skills and job mismatch among SHS graduates compared to industries’ demands.

“Iyon ang hinihingi ng mga industriya para iyong ating mga senior high school graduates maging employable. Like kulang sila sa work experience, kulang sa (That’s what the industries are demanding for our SHS graduates to be employable. Like they lack work experience), knowledge about the industries,” he said in an ambush interview.

Angara said the current curriculum loads learners with many subjects that could be reduced to only five or six core subjects, citing the “overcrowded curriculum” observations by Asian Development Bank (ADB) experts in England and Australia.

“Babawasan natin ang subjects. Dahil ngayon, nasa 30 ang kinukuha ng isang bata. So, ang reklamo ng mga colleges o kaya yung mga employers e parang wala nang na-master iyong ating mga bata sa dami ng sinusubo sa kanila (We will cut the number of subjects because right now, each student takes up about 30. So, the concern of colleges and employers is that there seems to be no mastery among learners due to the numerous subjects given to them),” he added,

Besides reducing the number of subjects, Angara also disclosed plans to provide learners with opportunities to “choose” what subjects they want to take, just like in other countries.

The DepEd, meanwhile, said the curriculum review is still months away from being finalized to include teachers’ training.

For its target implementation, Angara said they plan to roll out the revised SHS curriculum for School Year 2025-2026. (PNA)