Philippine Education: On K-12 proposal

 THE 12-YEAR EDUCATION Cycle will just definitely and heavily add to the burden of Filipino families, majority of which belongs to the poor. Moreover, this will further exploit our teachers to more work loads and less and less pay in real value.

In fact, my unstructured and random talk with families having children sent to the public schools revealed that almost all of them disagree on this K-12 proposal. If the scanty income they produce prove very inadequate to the current 10-year curriculum of the school set up, how much more, parents rhetorically ask, if two more years are to be added in the program?

Thus, unless the government will shoulder or subsidize the expenses for the proposed additional 2 years, it’s hard to see how the proposal can be perceptibly feasible and practicable.

Proponents of the K-12 proposal explain that this in effect makes schooling shorter, for in this system one can readily get a job after finishing high school. We have at least 3 reactions to this:

1) That is so hard to believe considering that in our country, even college graduates and board passers find it hard to get a job;

2) If by “jobs after finishing high school” they mean those done by graduates of vocational courses, then why not create more vocational schools in the country or intensify TESDA programs instead?;

3)  Doesn’t it reveal that the program is primarily designed to serve foreign needs for cheap “semiskilled” labor? (Some claim that this K-12 is being pushed by foreign banks and companies for them to be able to profit by further exploiting our people.)

Preparing people to be ready for blue-collar jobs abroad is not bad in itself, but to make it mandatory to all who want to finish basic education is serving foreign needs at the expense of many Filipinos. 

As drastic changes in the curriculum will inevitably take place upon the approval of the K-12 proposal, our teachers will be more strained into tedious classroom tasks. This will be too unfair to them considering that their perennial concerns and grievances (e.g. salaries that can’t provide decent living, too many class hours, etc.) were not yet addressed by the new government.   

Hence, to express it still in a politically correct manner, the K-12 proposal, to say the least, is very untimely. As far as quality of education is concerned, it doesn’t take an Einstein (or Dr. Nilo Rosas, for that matter) for the government to understand that no matter how many years they add to education, as long as classroom to student ratio remains 1:70, as long as there are no textbooks or they are riddled with errors, as long as teachers are underpaid, and facilities remain dilapidated, no improvement in quality can be expected.

The Department of Education should therefore first focus on addressing the problems concerning lack of teachers, classrooms, textbooks, laboratory facilities, comfort rooms and other pressing education-related concerns. (Remember that P-Noy has promised to fill the gaps in classroom and facilities and to increase state subsidy for education.)

Thus, the government has to forget the K-12 for now and endeavor instead to stop unjust tuition and other fee increases, and push for a nationalist-oriented curriculum and education system so that Filipino people will be truly benefited ... continue reading

Read: Mga Suliraning Kinakaharap ng Sektor ng Edukasyon sa Bansang Pilipinas

How to cite this article:

Jensen dG. Mañebog. “Philippine Education: On K-12 proposal” @ www.OurHappySchool.com