NEIL HONEYMAN
NATIONAL broadsheets are festooned with headlines saying “DepEd eyes…” This means that a mid-level civil servant has given a speculative seminar about an educational issue. It does not mean that anything is going to happen.
A fairly recent example was “DepEd eyes 2025 rollout of revised K-10 curriculum.” Allegedly, this was published for public feedback. Do DepEd and its officials listen to public feedback? I recall that in 2011, Sen. Ralph Recto conducted a wide-range questionnaire for parents’ responses.
The main conclusion was that, without doubt, parents did not want a six-year high school curriculum.
What happened?
Within a few months, the Aquino government foisted the six-year high school curriculum on a disbelieving public.
Not only that, but employers found that the K-12 curriculum was unacceptable for their needs. The Legislative Branch had obeyed the hectoring zeal of then DepEd Secretary Bro. Armin Luistro and so we are now in difficulties.
Luistro caused RA 10533 – the K-12 Education Act – to be passed in January 2013.
Now there are problems since to do anything useful goes against the Act and, therefore, the law.
What to do?
Apparently, proposals to amend the law are still pending in Congress.
Let’s hope progress is being made.
The best case is that Congress will revert to the 1982 Act, signed by the father of the current President.
I suppose zero progress in over 40 years is better than regression, but what we really need is excellence in our teaching profession which we do not yet have.
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Ceneco
I rarely write about the multifarious problems besetting Ceneco, mainly because PN readers receive excellent reportage already.
Nevertheless, the bizarre happenings suffered by Ceneco’s hapless consumers last Saturday need recording by a private individual. It started quietly with a previous Ceneco announcement for a planned brownout from 6 a.m. to 3 p.m. Nine hours is a long time to be without electricity though the forewarning is appreciated.
Electricity supply was restored within schedule so we would be able to complete the weekend without difficulty. Or so we thought.
Soon after the electricity was restored there was another interruption. And another. Through the afternoon, we suffered about 10 brownouts, all of fairly short duration. Within my memory, this has never happened before. Many household gadgets built for the first world have a problem with unscheduled brownouts. I hope fellow Bacolodnons have not suffered.
A long time ago, three motherboards for my washing machine were destroyed, in all probability due to the unreliable electricity supply. At P7,500 each, this meant our electricity was truly expensive.
Last Saturday, street lights in our subdivision failed, possibly due to the faulty electricity supply.
Let’s hope we shall see a more satisfactory supply soon./PN
