I ALWAYS thought that decisions relating to the practice of education was excessively centralized, and that the Department of Education (DepEd) micromanaged what goes on in our schools.
Not so, apparently.
Last week’s news that Cebu Governor Gwendolyn Garcia said that the provincial government would use English as the medium of instruction in the province’s public schools after the ‘embarrassing’ rating achieved by Filipino students in the 2018 Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA).
Apparently the Cebu provincial school board will implement a policy to ensure that students will concentrate on academics with less emphasis on school-related travel and other extracurricular activities.
So far, we have not heard any response from DepEd. Does it approve of Cebu’s plans?
Regular PN readers will be aware that Bacolod Tay Tung High School does well in extracurricular activities such as sports, particularly volleyball and basketball.
But the school is strong in academics also. Students study Chinese as well as the standard languages (English, Tagalog, and Ilonggo).
I mention Chinese because the mode of instruction is distinctly different from what we see in other subjects and in other schools.
Chinese instruction depends on repetition and reinforcement which contrasts with the mode of instruction in other subjects where students spend little time on topics before they move onto the next one.
My experience is that students like repetition because eventually they gain an easy familiarity with the subject matter which in turn gives them confidence.
It does not surprise me that the countries which gained the highest marks in the PISA survey included China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Singapore.
Sadly, I believe many Filipino students are endlessly trying to keep up with the subject matter being taught. This is a struggle for a substantial proportion w ho rarely are comfortable with what is being taught.
Teachers’ lesson plans tend to give only three to five days on topics which is not long enough for the average student to reach proficiency.
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Now that K-12 is under scrutiny once more, it is necessary to emphasize the tremendous cost involved in its proper implementation.
For 2020, DepEd asked for P803.13 billion which was cut back to P550.89 billion by the Department of Budget and Management. I believe that the claimed P800 billion was what DepEd needed to implement K-12 properly.
Congress has much to answer for. If we cannot afford K-12, then the law should not have been passed. In 2012 when the K-12 issue was being discussed, there was insufficient examination of what we could afford. There is waste because there was little or no analysis of the interaction between Senior High School (Grades 11 and 12) and the curricula covered by institutions under the aegis of the Commission on Higher Education (CHEd).
Next month a Committee consisting of five Senators and five Congressmen will consider our education system.
There is scope for greatly improving its cost-effectiveness./PN
