“Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world,”

says Nelson Mandela. Grasping this idea, former President Benigno Aquino, III decided to
legislate Republic Act 10533 entitled the Basic Education Law of 2013 or commonly referred to
as K-12 Program. The said program mandates all Filipino students to compulsory have one year
in kindergarten or pre-school, six (6) years of elementary schooling, four (4) years in Junior High
School and another 2 years for Senior High School. Former President Aquino stated, “By
signing this bill into law, we are not just adding two years of additional learning for our students;
we are making certain that the coming generations are empowered to strengthen the very fabric
of our society, as well as our economy.” (Burginio, 2013) Coherently, everybody especially the
students, their parents and teachers has something to say about the established Basic Education
Law of 2013. However, one must have open minds and ears to take in and listen to the voices of
the higher ups who are uttering their own outlooks. In this way, other’s appeals against the K-12
Curriculum shall be taken in consideration as well. Moreover, there are beneficiaries of the K-12
Program, but some sectors will be drastically affected and shifted in a difficult position. With the
Department of Education having difficulties in filling in the loop holes of the K-12 system, it left
a compelling impression to the public whether the former President Aquino’s administration took
a fast rise by taking a giant step just to stumble behind.
Delving deeper to the features of the K+12 program, the Department of Education
(DepEd) listed that its features are as follows: (1) making the curriculum will be relevant to
learners, or contextualization and enhancement; (2) building proficiency through language or
mother tongue-based multilingual education; (3) integrated seamless learning or spiral
progression; and (4) gearing up for future, or senior high school. (Abulencia, 2015, p.232) This
drastic change in educational system is believed by the government to increase the quality of
education among Filipinos and increase global competitiveness. According to Rivera (2017),
there are many practical benefits of having a 12-year educational cycle. Students are expected to
be more experienced and equipped to deal with a higher level of learning and possibly handling
job opportunities. This leads to the second goal; readiness to join the professional world. Unlike
the 10-year basic education, K+12 offers the graduates a choice whether to continue higher
education or to proceed in employment. Lastly, it aims to hasten the students’ skill competency
in the global job market. With all of this shining goals the government aims to grab, can the
country afford to change the educational system while it faces perennial problems of our
education system or the government will turn a blind eye and turns its back against these
predicaments?
However, there is a significant number of loopholes for every good feature that the K
to 12 program possess. Starting off with the fact that the public schools in the Philippines are
facing perennial problems such as lack of classrooms, school materials, high student-teacher
ratio and low salary of teachers. One senator, namely Senator Antonio Trillanes IV, was clearly
vocal about his strong opposition to the K to 12 program. According to Press Release’s article
(2014), Senator Trillanes argued that the government’s unpreparedness to the threatened
retrenchment of around 85, 000 college professors and employees as the program progresses. In
addition to this, Benjie Valbuena, national president of the Alliance of Concerned Teachers
(ACT), stated that the government is not yet ready for the full implementation of the K to 12. To
support this claim, out of the 68.7 billion Peso budget allocated last 2014 for classroom
construction, only 2.9 billion Peso or merely 4.22% of he said budget, was released for
implementation and out of the said figures, only 1.7 billion Peso was utilized. This definitely
says something, considering that the budget for education now is just 2.3% of our national
budget which is not even half of the international standards of 6%. (Gamil, 2015)
Another controversial part of the implementation of the new education program is its
positive effect in globalization as claimed by the government. In contrast with this, the contents
of the K to 12 curriculum may not all be relevant to the needs of the Philippine society. The
graduates of K to 12 are pushed towards global competition. To support this claim, there are
many subjects offered in the K to 12 that are designed to train Filipinos as future global laborers
which is not responding to the mandates of our 1987 Philippine Constitution stating “establish
maintain, and support a complete adequate, and integrated system of education relevant to the
needs of the people and society”. This may be good for our economy specifically in terms of
employment opportunities and dollar remittances. However, due to this, Philippines is lost its
way to national development. Lastly, teachers are a fundamental medium when it comes to
learning. Producing capable students is difficult to achieve when teachers themselves are not
competent. But since the implementation of K to 12 programs appears to be rushed, the trainings
and seminars of teachers regarding the changes of the curriculum seems rushed too. As a result,
there were a lot of school days were the students were left to study alone in school while the
teachers where busy coping up with the new educational system. The early implementation of K
to 12 led to multiple revisions of the curriculum while it was being used by the early batches of
students making them a subject of experiments conducted by the Department of Education
(DepEd)
Gathering all these in a nutshell, K to 12 program is a good step in producing
competent Filipino professionals. Having such program, the students will be able to have enough
time to do their school-related tasks as well preparing to higher education or even proceeding to
a corporate environment. The K to 12 program have good intentions and aims realistic visions
however, the said program was too early to be signed in to law considering its current state. With
the current state of the Philippines, the said realistic visions can easily be turned into idealistic
ones. What the country needs is time –time to recuperate and resolve its current education-
related problems before conforming in to the K to 12 system. In line with this, due to the rapid
implementation of the program, the government failed to conform the educational system to the
Philippines’ state and followed the standards of the western countries instead. What the
Philippines actually need is a curriculum that will respond to the need of our own people. A
curriculum content that will address our problems, so that the country could move forward to
development. Seeing the results of the implementation of K to 12 system in the country, it is
right to deduce that the K to 12 System became another liability instead of being an asset in
raising the country’s current state.