Background 1. The youth’s school-to-work transition is a convergence of numerous rights. The term itself features the rights to education1 and work,2 as stipulated in the conventions of the United Nations (UN). Moreover, these rights also intersect and are interdependent of other human rights, such as the right to adequate food, right to the highest attainable standard of health, right to social security, right to water, and right to adequate housing.3 Further, specificities and protection for employment security, wages, vocational guidance and training, equal opportunities and treatment, and health and welfare of different kinds of workers, among others, are covered by international legal instruments drawn by the International Labour Organization (ILO) through the International Labour Standards.4 2. It is important to note that the definition of youth varies from country to country, proponent to proponent, organization to organization, and document to document, among others. For example, the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) limits the youth population to persons who are fifteen (15) to twenty-four (24) years old,5 while Republic Act No. 8044 (An Act Creating the National Youth Commission (NYC), Establishing a National Comprehensive and Coordinated Program on Youth Development, Appropriating Funds Therefor, and for Other Purposes) or otherwise known as the Youth in Nation-Building Act defines youth as persons whose ages range from fifteen (15) to thirty (30) years old.6 3. In the Asia-Pacific region, the ILO has observed some concerning findings in its school-to-work transition survey (SWTS) report published in 2014, covering Bangladesh, Cambodia, Nepal, Samoa, and Viet Nam.7 Among its key findings are: (a) that too many young people are not benefiting fully from the educational system as an average 37% of young people aged 15 to 29 in the five countries were enrolled in school yet there remains between 0.1 and 13.9% young people in the same countries who have never attended school; (b) the lack of education/training is seen as an obstacle to finding work by young people, yet results show lower unemployment rates among the lesser educated and university graduates face longer job queues; (c) the countries’ average youth unemployment rate (relaxed definition)8 is 14.2%, with Cambodia having the lowest rate at 3.8%, and Nepal, the highest, at 28.9%; (d) the youth labor market in the region is profoundly influenced by gender issues with the average female 1 Convention on the Rights of a Child, adopted Nov. 20, 1989. International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, adopted Dec. 16, 1966. 3 Diokno, M. S. I. (2004). Human Rights Centered Development: Theory and Practice. University of the Philippines Press. 4 International Labour Organization. Subjects covered by International Labour Standards, ILO.ORG available at https://www.ilo.org/global/standards/subjects-covered-by-international-labour-standards/lang--en/index.htm (last accessed May 17, 2022). 5 Philippine Statistics Authority, November 2021 Labor Force Survey, available at https://psa.gov.ph/content/unemployment-rate-november-2021-estimated-65-percent (last accessed May 26, 2022). 6 An Act Creating the National Youth Commission, Establishing a National Comprehensive and Coordinated Program on Youth Development, Appropriating Funds Therefore, and for Other Purposes [YOUTH IN NATION-BUILDING ACT], Republic Act No. 8044, (1994). 7 International Labour Office, Labour market transitions of young women and men in Asia and the Pacific, Work4Youth Publication Series 19, (2014). 8 This refers to the “relaxed unemployment” used in the ILO report, which describes a person without work and available to work (relaxing the job-seeking criteria of persons of 15 years of age who did not work, who were actively searching for a job or took concrete action to start their own business, or who were available to work within the two weeks following the period of the study). Id. at 67-68. 2 9