Loren bats for expanded student jobs plan

Citing current economic conditions, Sen. Loren Legarda has called for urgent action on a bill seeking to expand an educational financing program for poor youths so that more may benefit from it.

While the Special Program for the Employment of Students (SPES) has been effective, Legarda said, reforms are needed to make the scheme more responsive to prevailing conditions.

Mandated by Republic Act 7323, the SPES helps underprivileged youths aged between 15 and 25 years support themselves through school by encouraging their gainful employment in private firms and government offices during the summer and Christmas breaks.

"We must quickly enlarge the SPES and make it more in accord with the growing number of youths desperately looking for temporary work so that they will have enough to pay for their tuition in the next (school) semester," Legarda said.

Young Filipinos aged 15 to 24 comprised more than half of 2.2 million members of the national labor force that were totally jobless as of October 2007, according to Legarda, chair of the Senate committee on economic affairs.

Under the SPES, working students and out-of-school youths get a salary not lower than the lawful minimum wage. Employers pay 60 percent of the amount in cash. The government covers the balance by way of education vouchers that the students may then use to pay tuition and buy books.

Since it was first implemented in 1993, the program has benefited some 80,000 students and out-of school youths every year.

In Senate Bill 923, Legarda said, more youths could gain from the SPES once certain amendments were made.

She said business establishments with at least 20 regular personnel should be allowed to hire qualified youths. At present, only firms with a minimum of 50 regular employees are allowed to engage youths under the program.

Besides allowing smaller shops to engage working youths, Legarda's bill also seeks to remove the P36,000 maximum annual family income requirement for aspirants to qualify for jobs under the SPES.

Legarda wants the Department of Labor and Employment and the National Economic Development Authority to periodically adjust the family income ceiling based on the revised annual poverty threshold in every region.

To further strengthen the SPES, Legarda's bill likewise seeks to penalize school owners and bookstores that refuse to honor education vouchers.

Legarda also proposed that funding for the SPES be increased by at least 20 percent every year, and that the amounts be considered automatically appropriated "to insulate the program from partisan interests."