POLITICAL youth of the Samahan ng Progresibong Kabataan criticized Commission on Higher Education chairperson Dr. Patricia Licuanan for encouraging students to take technical and vocational courses, instead of pursuing a college degree.
SPARK leader Clarissa Villegas called Licuanan’s stance as “irresponsible and limiting the aspirations of the youth” and called for Licuanan’s resignation.
“She might as well resign from her post if she prefers the youth to remain uneducated and docile slaves of oligarchs instead of critical and productive members of society,” she said.
Licuanan would only limit the students’ goal to attain a higher education, she said.
“Albeit the huge disparity in material well-being, we ought to have equal rights to receive free and quality education,” she added.
At a recent education summit participated in by over 500 stakeholders, Licuanan still recognized the importance of having a college degree despite the full implementation of the K-12 program.
“We find at CHED that more people want the diploma from college, when maybe it is better for them to go to Technical Education and Skills Development Authority to take vocational courses. We are trying to change that mindset,” Spark said in a statement.
Villegas questioned Licuanan’s statement that tertiary education was not for everyone “as if she is the ultimate authority in determining who’s fit to receive a diploma or not.”
“It is one thing to laud Tesda’s programs side by side with the so-called reforms in the educational sector but it is alarming for a state official to deliberately endorse for certain individuals the substitution of college diplomas with vocational courses,” she said.
With the K-12 program, Tesda Director Guiling Mamondiong saw a boost in the country’s employment, primarily through the technical-vocational-livelihood track being offered.
According to Villegas, “skilled but illiterate and discounted workers will only propel the youth toward a vulnerable platform of exploitation and misery in this period of global economic integration.”
“You can only master a trade so much, but as long as you depend on an employer who consistently retrenches you, in materiality there is no upward mobility. Here, Licuanan’s twisted logic restricts the very purpose of education—vocational or professional, solely for employment gains.”
Spark accused Licuanan of shifting the focus away from her failure to provide accessible and quality education despite sitting at the CHED’s top post for more than six years already.