Soft Skills: A Journey Among Secondary Students Towards Academic Excellence

Abstract

INTRODUCTION

Education has traditionally focused on the basic of reading, writing, arithmetic, and science. However, as the ever-increasing pace of innovation drives changes in the world, educators must re-evaluate whether the skills they teach truly provide their students with the best opportunities to succeed in school, the workforce, and in life overall. Although a strong background in traditional "hard" skills like reading, writing, mathematics, and science will always have its place in academic and career worlds, an increasing number of employers desire prospective employees with "soft" skills. It is important for students to develop soft skills as they prepare for college and as they graduate and enter the workforce. For this study, I tried to determine the level of Grade 10 secondary students of Tipas National High School in San Juan, Batangas in terms of the six (6) soft skills namely: Classroom Skills, Friendship Making Skills, Personal-Social Skills, Skill in Dealing with Feelings, Financial Management Skills, and Household Management Skills that would be essential in designing intervention programs by the Guidance and Counseling Office.

METHODS

The descriptive approach was used in this study to determine the skills need and academic performance of secondary students. Two hundred twenty-four (224) Grade 10 secondary students answered on the adopted questionnaire. The 4-point Likert Scale used in getting perception of the respondents. The statistical treatment of data used are the percentage, weighted mean, T-test, and Pearson's Product Moment Correlation Coefficient.

RESULTS

The study showed that lowest skill among the variable in this study is the Financial Management Skills. It was revealed that the Grade 10 secondary students of TNHS is moderately skilled in terms of financial management. It is alarming that with a weighted mean of 1.51, the secondary students are never good, thus, never recognize the importance of thriftiness.

DISCUSSIONS

Based on the findings an intervention program is proposed to enrich the skills of students in financial management. One of these is embedding special topics on Financial Education in subjects like Mathematics and T.L.E.. Furthermore, establishing partnership with rural banks is a concrete intervention to develop thriftiness of the Grade 10 students of Tipas NHS.