OVER the past decade, we have seen three Republic Acts affecting our education.
The first, RA 10157 made kindergarten education compulsory. At the time, a senior German educationalist emailed me to express concern. Compulsory kindergarten?! – he expostulated. An oxymoron!
The second, RA 10533, debatably entitled “The Enhanced Basic Education Act” (K-12 law) made a further 12 years of education compulsory for those who wished to attend tertiary education.
More compulsion.
More bossiness.
If you are going to be bossy, you’d better be right. DepEd does not have it right.
The eighth annual “K-12” batch has now entered Grade 11 and are not finding the globally competitive environment that DepEd promised.
The most recent Act, passed in 2017, is RA 10931 or the Universal Access to Quality Tertiary Education Act which guarantees state universities and colleges will not be collecting tuition and miscellaneous fees from students.
At an annual cost estimated at P15 billion, this has made a sea change for many families who otherwise could not afford to send their children to tertiary education.
The recent PISA (Programme for International Student Assessment) results show that, sadly, the Philippines is globally uncompetitive. This has engendered much response and a more realistic understanding of the educational challenges we face.
Firstly, we need to address the untruthfulness that emanated from DepEd prior to the passage of RA 10157 and RA 10533. The lack of veracity said that only two third world countries and the Philippines had a standard 10-year program for their education systems. “K-12” was almost universal was the mantra.
In fact, the United Kingdom has a standard school leaving age of 16. This means that child born in say, November 2003 would enter primary school in September 2009 and could leave school in December 2019 (now). A ten year program but with complete freedom to enter various colleges or apprenticeship schemes on leaving school.
We now have a 13 year compulsory program before our students can enter tertiary education.
In a thought-provoking article in PN (Dec. 13), Sen. Sonny Angara mentioned the formation of a Congressional Oversight Committee in Education (EDCOM). The results of this Committee could, I hope, influence education policy.
Specifically, we need to curtail the use of the word “compulsory” when, after all, education has many stakeholders including parents and students. Compulsory Grades 11 and 12 is resented by many and achieves very little. Graduate of four years of high school (Grade 10) can benefit from tertiary education.
It would be disappointing if DepEd believes that its role is to defend K-12 at all costs.
Raul Roco has often been said to have been the best president we never had. He may have been the best DepEd secretary that we did have. His style was not to interfere and not to introduce unnecessarily compulsory aspects to our education system. For example, he tended to be ‘hands-off’ as far as the private schools were concerned.
Not unexpectedly, the private schools fared somewhat better than the public schools in the recent PISA survey. Out of 79 countries, the Philippines was 79th. Philippines private schools were 70th. Still low but the private schools overtook Indonesia and Thailand.
Curriculum design needs to be examined carefully. Teachers’ lesson plans tend to devote only three to five days on substantial topics. In Math, Ateneo’s Professor Queena Lee Chua could, I believe, be helpful in designing an effective curriculum.
Encouragingly the mindset of many is that we should make changes. These could be successful if DepEd shows a greater propensity to listen to all stakeholders.
A past omission that can be rectified./PN
