Education for contractual work --- Workers protest K+12 anew

http://www.kilusangmayouno.org/news/2012/06/%E2%80%98education-contractual-work%E2%80%99-workers-protest-k12-anew

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Asserting their call for the junking of the K+12 education program, workers led by labor center Kilusang Mayo Uno held a protest action today in front of a high school in Quezon City, saying K+12 will only seal the fate of the youth as contractuals for big capitalists.

Launching their signature drive against the education program, the workers asked parents waiting for their children in front of the school, as well as the students, to sign a petition.
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“K+12 seeks to systematically produce contractuals who receive lower wages and are denied of benefits, job security, and other rights. K+12 will give away diplomas for entry into severe exploitation by big capitalists,” said Roger Soluta, KMU secretary-general.

“K+12’s implementation is another dictate of the biggest foreign capitalists on the Aquino government. Big capitalists seek to re-align the country’s educational system with the demands of their companies so that they can extract bigger profits,” he added.

KMU refuted the Aquino government’s claim that K+12 will improve the quality of education in the country, citing experts who say that the length of elementary and secondary education does not correspond to the quality of education.

“To improve the quality of education in the country, the Aquino government should allocate a bigger budget to education and solve the shortage of classrooms, teachers, books, and subsidy,” said Soluta.


KMU also belied the Aquino government’s claim that K+12 will help ease the chronic unemployment and poverty in the country.

“The causes of chronic unemployment in the country are the government’s so-called employment program and its basic economic policy, not the education system. With the K+12, the Aquino government is modifying the education system with the false hope that somehow, someway, more Filipinos will get a job,” Labog said.

“Contractual employment is a symptom of poverty, not a solution to poverty. K+12 is about generating contractual jobs, and cannot be a solution to poverty,” he said.

“Only genuine land reform and national industrialization can generate decent jobs for the majority of Filipinos. The Aquino government, however, is pursuing the exact opposite of these policies – concentrating land in the hands of a few and destroying what’s left of our industries,” Labog added.

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