Religious Communication Needs and Academic Persistence of Vocational Students in Banilad Center for Professional Development

Abstract

Recent trends on rising dropout rates in the Philippines indicate the critical need to offer vulnerable youth with opportunities to access education and employable skills. Such opportunities are provided by Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) centers which are more accessible to marginalized students with limited financial resources to pursue higher studies. This study analyzed the role of religious communication needs in improving the academic persistence of vocational students in Banilad Center for Professional Development (BCPD), an all-girls TVET center located in Cebu City, Philippines. Quantitative results showed that there was a moderately high level of academic persistence and significantly high level of satisfaction with the current religious communication in BCPD. Based on the Spearman’s Rank Correlation Coefficient, there was a moderately positive association between the two variables of this study. Furthermore, qualitative results revealed that the majority of the students, including those who did not identify as “religious”, agreed that the current religious communication offered in BCPD played a beneficial role in their academic persistence. Ultimately, this study explored religious communication as an alternative intervention strategy to address increasing dropout rates and out-of-school youth rates in the Philippines by providing vulnerable youth with access to higher quality TVET programs that meet their needs, including religious communication needs.