MANILA – President Rodrigo Duterte will not be interfering with the House of Representatives’ plan to review the K to 12 basic education program, his spokesperson Salvador Panelo said.
According to Panelo, it will be the Congress who will decide whether to pursue with the program or not.
“We will leave it to the wisdom of Congress… It’s Congress that will decide,” Panelo said during a Palace briefing.
House of Representatives Speaker Alan Peter Cayetano said that despite the promise that “K to 12 would prepare students for future employment, many public schools might not be ready for K to 12 due to lack of classrooms, facilities, equipment, and personnel.”
Earlier, the Department of Education (DepEd) reiterated that it has no plan to repeal K to 12 and stood pat on its claim that it is a “prompt necessity.”
“Pushing it back might prove detrimental to increasing demands on education,” the agency said.
DepEd clarified that reported plans to repeal K to 12 are misinformed and different from the plan of the Commission on Higher Education to “review and change the system for its K to 12 transition program.
“These two are not one and the same. The implementation of the K to 12 Program has seen numerous gains for the basic education system,” the DepEd said.
DepEd attributed to K to 12 the results of the Senior High School Program which surpassed expectations in enrollment and transition rates./PN
