The House of Representatives has approved on third and final reading a bill integrating a labor education subject into the college curriculum.
Rep. Juan Edgardo Angara (Lone District, Aurora), Chairman of the House Committee on Higher Education, said the education of college students on labor issues will give them knowledge of the labor situation in the country given the current employment problem."As they will eventually become a member of the labor force, they should be aware of their rights and privileges as workers as well as their responsibilities to society," Angara said.
To be known as the Labor Education Act of 2011, House Bill 4210 authored principally by Rep. Raymond Democrito Mendoza (Party-list, TUCP) mandates the Commission on Higher Education (CHED) to integrate labor education into the social science subjects being taught in the general education curriculum in the tertiary level of education.
"It is imperative that college students who will eventually join the labor force as workers and employees have knowledge about labor rights, worker's welfare and benefits, core labor standards, labor laws and regulations," Mendoza said. Mendoza said other topics including the national and global labor situation, labor market concerns, labor issues, overseas work and related problems will also become part of the subject that will be taught in college.
Mendoza said the Philippines have a college student population with a total of 2,619,795 students as of Academic Year 2008-2009.
Mendoza said the number of students enrolled in private universities and colleges are more than 1.6 million, while more than 820,000 are from state universities and colleges. Local universities and colleges have 96,000 while the rest come from other government higher education institutions.
Meanwhile, Rafael Mapalo, spokesperson of the Trade Union Congress of the Philippines (TUCP), said their group fully supports the bill since it will be of great help to the labor sector.
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