Concerning the Special Program for the Employment of Students in Balete

Today is the last day of the Special Program for the Employment of Students here in Balete. The local government unit has committed and employed 10 students coming from the ten constituent barangays (villages) of the municipality. Since last year at this time of the year, the LGU implemented the program with the Department of Labor and Employment to enable poor but deserving students generate extra income during the long summer break for them to pay their tuition fees for the following school year.

The SPES activities for the past two years delve on skills mapping with the end view of generating relevant databank concerning the Baleten-on labor force. The LGU's databank on its labor force is insufficient for it to establish a labor market information system. Such system would be useful not only in setting up appropriate policies on local labor and in addressing the high underemployment rate and poverty incidence but also for jobseekers and investors and other stakeholders.

So the government is investing on these students as future leaders and at the same time immersing them in the realities of labor issues and concerns of today. For 22 days since April 19, they were sent back to their respective villages to gather labor related information concerning their people and at the same time training them to analyze the data they have gathered during weekly huddles.

In a way, the program is an attempt to reorient the youth's values away from the patronage and "solicitation" mentality which are prevalent since the Marcos time.

At the most, the LGU could only pray that it has served as catalyst of change in a society where the youth although regarded as the hope of fatherland are constantly rebelling for something chic yet rootless, popular yet ephemeral.

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