ALMOST two-thirds of the 1.35 million graduating high school students who took the first National Career Assessment Examination on January 17 lacks the scholastic aptitude to pursue college education, the Department of Education said yesterday.

DepEd said the results of the examination showed that 468,901 students or 35.93 percent have moderate aptitude for tertiary education.

It said 711, 526 students or 54.51 percent of the takers showed an aptitude for technical or vocational courses. It said nearly half of students in this category or 33,444 showed very high scores of 98 to 99 percent. At least 2,000 examinees registered superior aptitude for vocational/technical courses.

DepEd said 22,276 students who belong to families of annual incomes less than P150,000, the current poverty threshold, are among the highest scorers in aptitude for college.

Education Secretary Jesli Lapus said the NCAE results showed that the government is on the right track in pursuing technical-vocational program as one of the solutions to the growing mismatch between the skills of graduates and the needs of the job market.

The education department has mounted a program to upgrade the facilities, curriculum and training in 261 technical-vocational nationwide.

The education department’s technical-vocational training program is aligned closely with the "ladderized" program of education being offered in 500 tertiary schools nationwide by the Commission on Higher Education and the Technical Education Skills Development Authority.

Under the ladderized program, graduates of technical-vocational courses are trained in skills that are in demand in the job market. The units they earned may be credited for regular college work if they decide to pursue further studies.

Lapus said given the NCAE results, most high school graduates are better off pursuing technical-vocational courses than taking college degree programs for which they do not posses the aptitude.