Pre-primary educationPre-school education at the kindergarten level (age group 5-6 years) must aim todevelop children in all aspects (physical, social, emotional, and cognitive) sothat they will be better prepared to adjust and cope with life situations and thedemands of formal schooling; and to maximize the children’s potential through avariety of carefully selected and meaningful experiences considering theirinterests and capabilities. The curriculum focuses on the following areas:* Physical development: it includes gross and fine motor co-ordination throughplay and manipulative activities like games, simple works, etc.* Personal-social development: it involves skills and social behaviours and itincludes the development of health habits, independence, abilities to follow rulesand routines. Learning about the family and other people is part of the concernsin this area.* Affective development: it includes experiences that help children developlove for God, self, others and the community, and develop awareness of theirfeelings and sense of the right and wrong.* Cognitive development: it includes the development of communication skillsand sensory-perceptual and numeracy concepts and skills. Communication skillsrefer to competencies in expressing ideas and feelings both in English andFilipino (oral expression and basic readiness skills of listening, pre-reading andwriting). Sensory-perceptual and numeracy skills refer to the ability to observe,discriminate, compare and classify, and to understand, count, read and writenumbers.* Creative-aesthetic development: it includes exploration of sounds, music andrhythms, and the development of children’s creative expression through drawing,painting, manipulative activities, etc.In order to attain and ensure the holistic development of children, a well-plannedcurriculum and a well-balanced programme of activities are necessary, althoughthey may vary according to each pre-school’s approach. Indoor and outdoor play areessential whatever approach the pre-school follows. The language spoken by thechild should be valued. It is necessary that such language be used initially anduntil the children have attained the facility and confidence in expressingthemselves in English and Filipino. The following table shows a sample programmeof pre-school activities:Sample programme of pre-school activitiesArea of developmentActivitiesNo. of minutesCommunication skills and socio-emotional developmentSharing period (experiencies, songs, poems, news and informal conversation10Cognitive development, socio-emotional development, physical development, creativedevelopment

Self-selected activities20Cognitive development, socio-emotional developmentWorking period, including more structured activities45-60Physical development, creative development, socio-emotional developmentSupervised outdoor paly30Personal-social development, health careClean up and snack30Physical developmentRest15Any of the areas of developmentStory time or indoor activities15Total minutes 165-180The Pre-school Education Programme, established in 1992, aims to provide 5-year-olds in disadvantaged areas an opportunity for early peer socialization andlearning activities before starting elementary education. The former DECSorganized a total of 1,428 classes with 40,780 pupils in the twenty provincescovered by the Social Reform Agenda (SRA). A total of 638 pre-school teachers weretrained in nine selected regions. Instructional materials and supplies weredistributed to classes under the Department Programme, pre-schools run by Parent-

Teacher Associations, and community-based pre-schools.- TOP -Primary educationElementary education provides basic education to pupils aged 7-12. The elementarycourse comprises six years (in some cases, seven years), the first four yearstermed primary grades and the last two years, intermediate grades.The overall mission of elementary education is to enable pupils to acquire a basicpreparation that will make them an enlightened, disciplined, self-reliant, God-loving, creative, versatile and productive citizens in a national community. Themain objectives of elementary education are:* to provide knowledge and develop the skills, attitudes and values essentialto the children’s personal development and necessary for living in andcontributing to a developing and changing social milieu;* to provide learning experiences aimed at increasing the children’s awarenessof and responsiveness to the demands of society, and to prepare them forconstructive and effective involvement;* to promote and intensify the children’s knowledge of, identification with,and love for the nation and the people to which they belong;* to promote work experiences aimed at developing and enhancing the children’sorientation to the world of work and creativity, and to prepare them for an honestand gainful work.Curriculum policies are usually set forth by the Department of Education throughvarious orders, circulars, memoranda and bulletins. They are aligned with nationalpriorities and contribute to the achievement of development goals. However,several laws passed by the national legislature specifically relate to the schoolcurriculum.Development of the basic education curriculum is the responsibility of the CentralOffice Bureau of Elementary and Secondary Education, Curriculum DevelopmentDivisions. This bureau defines the learning competencies for the different subjectareas; conceptualizes the structure of the curriculum; and formulates nationalcurricular policies. These functions are exercised in consultation with otheragencies and sectors of society (e.g. industry, social and civic groups, teacher-training institutions, professional organizations, school administrators, parents,students, etc.). The subject offerings, credit points and time allotments for thedifferent subject areas are also determined at the national level. In this sense,a national curriculum exists in the Philippines. However, while curriculumimplementation guidelines are issued at the national level, the actualimplementation is left to school-teachers. They determine the resources to beused; teaching and assessment strategies and other processes. Furthermore, schoolshave the option to modify the national curriculum (e.g. content, sequence andteaching strategies) in order to ensure that the curriculum responds to localconcerns.The approach to curriculum design in the country is based on content topic andcompetency. The Department of Education prescribes competencies for the subjectareas in all the grade/year levels. The Bureau of Elementary and SecondaryEducation develops, publishes and disseminates these learning competencies to thefield. Most of the subject/learning areas have a list of learning competenciesexpected to be mastered by the children at the end of each grade/year level andalso at the end of elementary/secondary schooling. Some subject/learning areas