Work Immersion

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.”