THE ALLIANCE of Concerned Teachers urged Sen. Sherwin Gatchalian to look into the government’s actual record of hiring high school and senior high school graduates since the Kindergarten to Grade 12 program was implemented.

“We urge Sen. Gatchalian to probe how many salary grade 1 to 6 positions to which HS and SHS graduates qualify, have the government created and filled in the last ten years. Our informed guess is that the numbers are very negligible,” Vladimer Quetua, the group’s chairperson, said.

“The overriding trend in government agencies is to keep the SG 1-6 regular positions unfilled, and hire manual and semi-skilled laborers on job order basis, as an austerity measure. As such, high school and junior high school graduates have very little chance for regular employment in government, and are only usually hired for contractual jobs with low wages and no benefits nor security of tenure,” Quetua added.

He claimed that there were agencies that abolished these positions and converted them to higher positions, which required higher qualifications.

“Even if there are low-level positions open for hiring, our High School and Junior High School graduates have to compete with college graduates and under graduates who are also having difficulties in finding jobs,” Quetua said.

“Our main problem really, may it be in the public or private sector, is that there are inadequate jobs to absorb our labor force. The jobs available for our senior high school graduates are largely very low-paying and temporary,” he added.