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| K-12 |
Since
the origin of education in the Philippines, the basic span of the curriculum
has always been 10 years compared to the global standard of 12.The K-12
Program, the flagship education program of the Aquino administration, has added
2 more senior years to the current education curriculum to improve the quality
of Filipino high school students prior to entering college or the workforce. This
will cover the official integration of kindergarten through the Republic Act
No. 10157 entitled “An Act Institutionalizing the Kindergarten Education into
the Basic Education System and Appropriating Funds Therefor”. The act indicates
the curriculum to have six years of primary education, four years of junior
high school, and two years of senior high school. This makes the Philippines
the last country in Asia to adopt this system and the antepenultimate from
Angola and Djibouti. A subject of intense debate long before its
implementation, the reaction to the K-12 Program has been mixed. This June, the
first batches of Grade 1 pupils and first-year high school students officially
underwent the program.
Looking through R.A. 10157, the
revised curriculum has also good points for one to become globally competitive.
Paraida Orangot, Assistant Principal at East City Central School, said “With
[the] series of trainings that we conducted, we were able to come up with a
good result with full optimism from the teachers and parents. They were able to
accept the changes so there are minor complaints in our city [Cagayan de Oro]”.
One of the features of the said
curriculum is the implementation of the Mother-Tongue Based Multilingual
Education [MTB-MLE] indicating that public schools will be using their
mother-tongue language from Kindergarten up to Grade 3. DepEd has specified 12
languages including Tagalog, Maranao, and Cebuano – some agreed since the
subjects could easily be understood by applying vernacular in the teaching
methods. The K-12 education vision also states that graduates of this revised
curriculum will acquire
mastery of basic competencies; be more
emotionally mature; be socially aware, pro-active, involve in public and civic
affairs;
be adequately prepared for the world of work or
entrepreneurship or higher education; be
legally employable with potential for better earnings; be globally competitive; and
lastly, Every graduate of the Enhanced K-12 Basic Education program
is an empowered individual who has learned, through a program that is rooted on
sound educational principles and geared towards excellence, the foundations for
learning throughout life, the competence to engage in work and be productive,
the ability to coexist in fruitful harmony with local and global communities,
the capability to engage in autonomous critical thinking, and the capacity to
transform others and one’s self.
Sounds too
good to be true but no matter how convincing it may seem, it can never outweigh
the criticism of the public – most especially from the burdened parents. Most
popular complaints among the K-12 critics are the educational costs. Majority
of the Filipino’s standard of living is average or below average and for some
unfortunate, most are even below the poverty line. If some families, especially
the large ones have difficulty sending their kids to school or some couldn’t
even afford to let the kids finish elementary or pursue high school, how much
more with the extended years of primary and secondary education? The would only
make education more inaccessible and in return, will be producing more
undereducated individual that will end up to mediocrity. If there are surplus
of college graduates in which according to the survey turns out to be
unemployed and underemployed, then tell me in what way the government will
provide jobs for the K-12 graduates
whose number would certainly be greater than college graduates?
Well I say
that this is about politics – with the proposal of K-12 curriculum, comes with
a sanguinity of loan approval from the World Bank for reasons that once it is
implemented, more resources will be needed: Financial, Infrastructure and
Manpower but how sure are we that the budget that comes with the proposal will
really be allocated to what it is originally intended to. Even before K-12, the
government couldn’t even resolve the problems we face with the 10-year
education – the lack of classrooms, inefficient learning materials,
teacher-student ratio disproportion and many more. They say it’s for the people
but do the people really benefit from it or they just benefit for their selves.
Would it be better if they would give attention first to these glitches before
adding another crumple to already crumpled system?
I have
nothing against K-12 program. In fact I commend that the curriculum has a good
structure for development but the question is, based on the current economic
status of the Philippines, Are we even capable to push it through? Personally
I’m not disregarding the program but I say to give this program a rest until
such time that we Filipinos are ready and equipped enough to bring about this
change. One of the rationales stated in the K-12 program is that “The poor
quality of basic education is reflected in the low achievement scores of
Filipino students”, then maybe, instead of prolonging the distress of already
burdened parents, the government could just improve the quality of education by
improving the curriculum instead of adding additional years, provide an
environment more conducive for learning and make education accessible for every
Filipino. I believe that Filipinos are great only with a good system. In fact,
we are the most sought after race when it comes to manpower overseas.
In the
K-12’s transitional stage, opinions are bound to come up. Whether good or bad,
the effects of the issues raised shall only be evident in the long run. Until
then, we’ll cross our fingers and hope that K-12 Program will be an answer to
many of our country’s problem answer.
Source:
“The K-12 Basic Education
Program”,
Official
Gazette of the Republic of the Philippines (http://www.gov.ph/)
Visabella, J.D. (2012). “Kamusta
Naman Ka K-12”. The Crusader.
Vol. 39.
No.1 July 2012. page 24.
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