UPDATE Jan. 5, 2023: The Board of Trustees is poised to support co-curricular STEM education to direct focus on life learning that overcomes hindrance to workforce growth.
“By making K-12 completers want to do general “industrial work” in identity formation,” the top leaders believe “that field immersion will transform student experience in STEM to success.”
SKIA Center for Teaching and Learning agreed: “Finding ways to get cohorts of post-secondary enrolees interested in STEM is a good start to look at the content of our classes.” Occupational objectives for short-term training fall under TESDA introductory craft and industrial skills program.
Careers in occupational fields such as construction and trades or hospitality and customer services will serve students with a fast track to the workforce. TESDA NC II core curriculum certification for carpentry, electrical, plumbing, welding are foundational skills. Entry-level education needs to be clustered for “general industrial” employment which includes an introduction to hand tools, power tools and basic safety, construction drawings, basic communication skills, and basic employability skills .
Attention meanwhile turned to the timely official statement of Vice President Sara Duterte who is concurrently Secretary of Education: “[P]rivate schools, colleges and universities offering SHS-TVL along with Academic strands may adopt the policy guidelines issued under DepED Order 054 s. 2022.”
DepED Order 054 aims to institutionalize steps to be taken to identify Tech-VOC track preferences in order to streamline the list of technical-vocational livelihood (TVL) specializations, which will be implemented starting 2024.
Faculty and students at SKIA say they are excited about new opportunities and challenges to the community of learners in BARMM who have been historically excluded from the sciences. It is all about balance in curricular clusters within introductory STEM courses in K to 12 program.
