Niko Lepran Magno

BSED- 4109

Work immersion of Senior Highschool Students

One of the concerns of the implementation of the K to 12 curriculum is that, are the
students will be what the government and themselves expects them to be? Will they be
competent to their respective field of interests and will they be skillful and knowledgeable
enough to help suffice the economic needs of the Philippines especially in the manpower
field. The government comes up to implementing work immersion that will be conducted
depending on what the learners’ purposes or needs. And before further discussing, I totally
agree on this stand for it will be one of the key practices on improving student
performances.

So, what is work immersion? It is a work simulation, or how other students in their
comfort called it as “OJT” that consists of 80hrs basic time allotment up top 320hrs
maximum time for grades 11 and 12 students. Through this, the students will become
familiar with work- related environment related to their field of specialization to enhance
their competence. Education secretary Leonor Briones said that "we should start training
our SHS students in the actual field of work to enhance their competency early"

On the other hand, future successes of the work immersion program also have flaws
like the fact that our country had a lot of experience with on-the-job training programs on
the collegiate level. Unfortunately, many (if not most) college OJT students are assigned
only to insignificant jobs in a company (answering the phone, making photocopies, making
coffee – that sort of thing). Rarely are OJT students expected to produce the same products
that regular employees produce. If that’s the case, how are these students going to learn
prior to their expectation with these experts that are going to teach them to be future
professionals. Immersion in SHS will be useless if it is patterned after most of the OJT
experiences currently being undertaken by college students. But, there is a solution simple
enough to end this dilemma if that’s how we call it. And that is to involve the companies
and not just the schools for them to be aware of the educational objectives of the K to 12.
To conclude my stand, work immersion is a solid matter in terms of enhancing the
learners’ skills and discipline not only for self improvement but also for the betterment of
his/ her future company that is because the student will be able to asses himself early
inside the company during the immersion period and will be used to it. They will know
about the work ethics, will gain knowledge about the safety in the workplace, the rights,
responsibilities, learning the effective way to resolve conflicts among coworkers and the
work will not be that hard for them if they apply at the same or related company in the
future. With that, I am closing my speech with quote from my favorite marshal artist, Bruce
Lee:

“A good teacher protects his pupils from his own influence.”