I am the proud parent of a working student.
However, that is only possible because my working student is studying abroad in a first world country, where the conditions are much more conducive for them, as the schools, employers, and government seem to have a better understanding of what the term actually means.
Unfortunately for those in the Philippines who wish to do the same, the existing conditions are simply not there, which means those who manage to pull off being a working student are the truly hard core who have to juggle work and studies, often at the expense of their sanity.
I remembered this issue after recently coming upon the State of the Working Student report of the Mapua Malayan Digital College, which found that nearly half of working students in the Philippines have seriously considered quitting school, making it the main concern they face, alongside sleep deprivation and burnout.
The report found that 45.2 percent of respondents considered dropping out, 56.1 percent said they sleep five hours or less a night, and burnout is also widespread, as 58.1 percent said they feel overwhelmed, while 49.7 percent reported emotional and mental exhaustion.
The MMDC report said these pressures reflect the “dual-fulltime” reality many Filipino working students face.
More than 80 percent of respondents held full time jobs while pursuing a degree, while another 43.9 percent were carrying a full academic load on top of a 40-hour work week. This made time the top academic barrier, as cited by 52.9 percent of those surveyed.
“The challenges working students face are not the result of poor choices, weak discipline, or lack of drive,” said Dennis Tablante, MMDC executive director. “They are the predictable output of systems – academic, workplace, and policy.”
In other words, it takes either a lot of commitment, or extreme need, to decide to be a working student in the Philippines, where the person who makes the choice cannot expect to have any free time, or quality of life, because both working and studying will take up all of their time. A working student in this country cannot expect to have a work-life balance because there are no systems or arrangements that consider their needs.
As the MMDC report says, the system, which is made up of the academe, workplace, and policy or government, simply doesn’t allow working while being a student, to be an option for most Filipinos.
In comparison, my eldest child who is a university student in the Japanese city of Hiroshima, has been a working student for most of his time there, and based on his experience, it is not that difficult to be one because the system there not only allows it, but even encourages it.
First of all, my kids’ student visa allows 28 hours of work per week during the school term, and during school breaks, the work hour restrictions are lifted.
On the part of the school, their schedule is not as heavy as the Philippines, which gives students time to work if they want to, effectively normalizing it. Aside from allowing students to work, the lighter schedule also shows that our academic programs are also training students with an employee mindset, where 8 hours work per day is normal, and ‘all nighters’ glorifies overtime work.
On the end of employers, which include small businesses, the work schedule they provide is very flexible. In the case of my kid, who has 3 jobs: hotel cleaner, hotel reception, and English teacher, each job is only 1-2x per week, in 4-6 hour shifts. Full 8-hour shifts with overtime are rare, so the students don’t have to kill themselves just to keep their jobs. Despite that, he earns enough to help us with his allowance and even has some time and money left over for leisure.
Of course, there is also the issue of better pay. Japanese working students, or ‘arubaito’ get the minimum rate that is around 1,000 to 1,200 yen per hour. That’s around P377-P450 per hour. So my kid just works enough to help out with allowance, lightening the load on the grateful parents.
All those combine to create conditions where working students are encouraged.
Unfortunately for their Filipino counterparts, school and work compete with each other to demand full days from the student, making it extremely difficult and exhausting for someone to choose to be a working student who doesn’t get paid much anyway.
These systemic hurdles that potential and current working students are facing will need to be dismantled through a collective effort by all the stakeholders: the government, employers, and school administrators. The question is whether or not they know that there is a problem, and if they are willing to spearhead the necessary paradigm shift to make our country a better place for working students.*
