MANILA (August 28) — The Department of Education and the Jollibee Group have collaborated to design a food service curriculum that will soon be available to senior high school students. The program will combine classroom instruction with on-the-job training in the fast-food chain’s restaurants.
According to a Jollibee Group press release, the quick service restaurant (QSR) curriculum will be tested in schools across the country for senior high school students enrolled in DepEd’s technical professional (TechPro) track.
Students will be trained in restaurant operations through the curriculum, which will cover topics including food preparation, customer service, workplace communication, and safety and sanitation requirements.
Education Secretary Sonny Angara stated that DepEd’s collaboration with the fast-food giant is a “strong example” of how public-private cooperation can make learning more “industry-relevant.” The program will “integrate classroom-based instruction with immersive on-the-job training across Jollibee Group brands.”
“At a time when tech disruption and artificial intelligence are changing occupations and sectors, our partnership provides our students the resilience and appropriate tools to succeed,” Angara remarked. According to the news release, the work immersion component of the curriculum will begin in the next academic year.
The success of expanding the program to additional schools will be determined by the lessons learned from the pilot session.
This new food service curriculum for senior high school students comes as the senior high program has received years of criticism for failing to generate employable graduates, which was one of its main promises when it originally started in 2012.
Parents, employers, and education advocates have long noted that many graduates struggle to find work after completing the program, in both the public and commercial sectors.
DepEd has since conducted a significant revision of the senior high curriculum. Among other modifications, students are no longer restricted to the strand or track they select, but will instead take electives from other “subject clusters” based on their professional goals.
The new senior high curriculum allows pupils to choose between two tracks: academic and technical professional.Aside from co-developing the food service curriculum, the Jollibee Group Foundation has pledged to building 50 classrooms by 2028 to help alleviate the country’s classroom deficit. The first six will be built in Mindoro, Cebu, and Sarangani in 2026.
