A TOTAL of 1,650 students in Bacolod City applied for the Special Program for Employment of Students (Spes) of the Department of Labor and Employment specifically during this summer, an official of the Public Employment and Services Office (Peso) said.
Peso–Bacolod Head Anthony Ayco said they started hiring at the Bacolod Government Center last month, and the deployment is set on May 2.
Ayco said Peso will still evaluate the documents of the student-applicants before deploying them to various city government offices and barangays.
“The program aims to help the students, especially those in senior high school, in paying their tuition fees for the next school year,” he added.
Spes is mandated under Republic Act 9547, or “an act to help poor but deserving students pursue their education by encouraging their employment during summer and Christmas vacations through incentives granted to employers, allowing them to pay only 60 percent of their salaries or wages, and 40 percent through education vouchers to be paid by the government.”
Aside from providing opportunity to earn, it is also aimed at developing the intellectual capacities of children of poor families and harnessing their potentials and skills for the country’s well-being.
It covers students and drop-outs with intention to continue schooling, age 15 to 25 years old, and who are enrolled during the present school year immediately preceding the summer vacation.
Of the total number of applicants, the agency only provided 150 slots for Bacolod City.
This is because the previous administration failed to liquidate, Ayco said.
“Supposedly, Dole will provide us more than 1,000 slots for students in the city, but was reduced to 150 because of failure in terms of liquidation compliance,” Ayco said.
He added that “in order to accommodate the students who are willing to participate in this year’s summer job, the city government will hire more than 1,000 and pay them using its fund.”
For the whole Negros Occidental, Dole has allocated almost P15.5 million for the hiring of up to 6,000 students this year.
