IT IS A YEAR since the results of an international comparison of educational attainment for 79 countries was produced.
It showed that the Philippines did badly and in three major subjects: English, Math, Science, we ranked 78th.
The Department of Education (DepEd) took the results seriously. So did Congress. The outcome was an agreement to hold joint meetings between DepEd and Congressional representatives on the Senate and House of Representatives’ Education Committees. These meetings, scheduled for early 2020, were designed to identify the problems and to put forward recommendations which would be designed to improve the standards of educational achievement.
The pandemic may have caused difficulties in arranging these meetings. Nevertheless, DepEd seems to be making progress in its campaign for quality education. It has identified four areas which require improvement.
These are:
* K-12 curriculum review and update
* Improving the learning environment
* Teachers’ upskilling and reskilling
* Engagement of stakeholders for support and collaboration.
Defining the problem is an essential part of our quest for progress.
It is a start, but only a start, to offer comments on the topics mentioned above.
I shall address, in outline, the K-12 issue.
This is an enormous area, and I shall confine my observations to the implementation of K-12 in Senior High School (Grades 11 and 12). These grades, of course, did not exist before the implementation of RA 10533 which introduced the concept of Senior High School (SHS).
The obvious aspect is the need to show that the SHS curriculum dovetails smoothly with relevant courses in higher education. It is not clear to me that sufficient attention was given to this issue. At the time that the SHS curriculum was being designed, the impression given was that SHS was considered to be an extension of ‘Junior’ High School but that the impact of SHS on higher education was not fully considered. DepEd went full steam ahead on what it wanted to do but we are not aware of sufficiently thorough consideration being given to the impact on courses administered by the Commission on Higher Education (CHEd).
Dr Patricia Licuanan, CHEd head at the, time seemed to be playing the good soldier and did not, at least in public, make observations as to how higher education was to be affected by SHS graduates who, at least in theory, were going to be significantly more advanced than the high school graduates in the era prior to RA 10533 implementation.
As an aside, I was concerned when, in 2014, President Aquino gave Dr Licuanan a four year contract which included two years where Aquino’s presidential successor would be in post.
This seems ungentlemanly: to make a decision which rightfully should be the purview of who has turned out to be President Duterte.
I trust Duterte will be more cohesive with his successor, whoever she may be!/PN
