SENATOR Raffy Tulfo on Monday proposed the integration of an enterprise-based training program into the senior high curriculum as soon as possible to make job-ready senior high graduates.

During Monday’s hearing, the Senate Committee on Higher, Technical and Vocational Education, Tulfo said senior high students must have an apprenticeship program that would count as experience for them to immediately enter the workforce after graduation.

“The problem is that there is a disconnect between our educational curriculum, particularly in senior high, and the actual industry needs, which may be addressed through the enterprise-based training program,” Tulfo said.

“I fully support this bill because the law that can provide jobs and fair wages to our countrymen is a long-term solution to the many problems they face daily,” he pointed out.

Tulfo said, in the academic year 2016 to 2017, the Department of Education began to implement the K to 12 Senior High School Manual of Operations.

The senator said this is the aspect of the K to 12 programs where the Senior High School Graduates are given education and training sufficient for four potential exit points including employment, entrepreneurship, middle-level skills development, and higher education.

“So much research, study, public funds, and hard work went into the implementation of the K to 12 program and while some are getting impatient about the promised results of employment for our Senior High School Graduates, I believe, that we should first try to support what has been started instead of having a knee-jerk reaction of abruptly terminating its implementation,” he said.