THE PRACTICAL IMPRACTICAL But what does K-12 scheme really has to offer to end, K-12 graduates will
to end, K-12 graduates will become globally
K + 12 EDUCATION PROGRAM
The
implementation of K-12 curriculum in the country drew
negative reactions from various societal groups. Since
2011, critics have been very vocal on their primary
concerns. They insist the government isn’t yet ready
for this new system and that this is more of additional
burden to students and their parents.
Despite calls to suspend the program, the government
remained firm saying this new educational system
offers opportunities for Filipino students and the
national economy.
For its part, the Department of Education (DepEd)
stresses that the country is prepared for a big shift in
education system. In fact, it has worked to fulfill the
gaps on the number of classrooms, teachers, and
textbooks. Also, it has finished the planning phases
along with stakeholders.
students?
To prove that K-12 system is more than just adding
two more years to high school, below are three of the
many practical benefits of schooling under a 13-year
education cycle:
1. Preparedness for tertiary learning  – With
adaptation of K-12 scheme, students are expected
to graduate at age a bit older than past
graduates’. This is an advantage, according to
DepEd, as graduates will be considered young
adults. Hence, they will be more equipped to deal
with much higher level of learning as they enter
college education.
2. Readiness to join the workforce – Unlike the
old system, K-12 does not compel each student to
take college after completing Senior High School
(SHS). In fact, this scheme empowers students to
ma ke a choice on their own. They may not
pursue college education especially if they have
chosen a track other than academic track. The
good thing is SHS graduates will be equipped with
skills (through electives) that will make them good
at certain field(s).
3. Skill competency in the global job market  – K-
12 system aims to improve Filipino students’
mathematical, scientific, and linguistic
competence. With the new curriculum, DepEd
promised to offer higher quality education through
tracks. Each track will give students enough time
to master a field and enhance their skills. In the
competitive and are set to obtain spot in the stiff
labor market.
The government believes that K to 12 curriculum
in the Philippines will put Filipino students at par with
the rest of the world. Truly, investing in education is
the key toward reaching national growth and
development.
The
PROS (which is
basically
the side of
the
government, well-heeled and articulate leaders from
the academe, the business community and the media):
® “Enhancing the quality of basic education in the
Philippines is urgent and critical.”
® “The poor quality of basic education is reflected in
the low achievement scores of Filipino students. One
reason is that students do not get adequate
instructional time or time on task.”
® International test results consistently show Filipino
students lagging way behind practically everybody else
in the world. In the 2008 mathematics exam, for
example, we came in dead last.
® “The congested curriculum partly explains the
present state of education.” Twelve years of content
are crammed into ten years.
® “This quality of education is reflected in the
inadequate preparation of high school graduates for
the world of work or entrepreneurship or higher
education.” If ten years were adequate, how come
employers do not hire fresh high school graduates?
How come most high school graduates flunk the
UPCAT?
® “Most graduates are too young to enter the labor
force.” Since most children start Grade 1 when they
are 6 years old, they do not reach the legal employable
age of 18 when they graduate from high school today.
® “The current system also reinforces the
misperception that basic education is just a
preparatory step for higher education.” Why prioritize
the minority of high school graduates that go to
college?
® “The short duration of the basic education program
also puts the millions of overseas Filipino workers
(OFWs), especially the professionals, and those who
intend to study abroad, at a disadvantage. Our
graduates are not automatically recognized as
professionals abroad.” The best examples are our
engineering graduates, who are condemned to
international jobs not befitting their professional status
due to our not having a 12-year basic education cycle.
® “The short basic education program affects the
human development of the Filipino children.” If we
believe that 17-year-old high school graduates are
emotionally, psychologically, and intellectually mature,
why do we require them to get parental consent before
they get married?
The
CONS
(which
are
basically the madlang people whose pocketbooks
would be adversely impacted by the proposed
additional 2 years of basic education):
® Parents have to shell out more money (for
transportation and food) for the education of their
children.
® The government does not have the money to pay for
two more years of free education, since it does not
even have the money to fully support today’s ten
years. DepEd must first solve the lack of classrooms,
furniture and equipment, qualified teachers, and error-
free textbooks.
® We can do in ten years what everyone else in the
world takes 12 years to do. Why do we have to follow
what the rest of the world is doing? We are better than
all of them. Filipinos right now are accepted in
prestigious graduate schools in the world, even with
only ten years of basic education.
® As far as the curriculum is concerned, DepEd should
fix the current subjects instead of adding new ones.
The problem is the content, not the length, of basic
education. As an editorial put it, we need to have
better education, not more education.
® A high school diploma will not get anybody
anywhere, because business firms will not hire fresh
high school graduates.
® Every family dreams of having a child graduate from
college.
® While students are stuck in Grades 11 and 12,
colleges and universities will have no freshmen for two
years. This will spell financial disaster for many private
Higher Education Institutions (HEIs).
The drop-out rate will increase because of the two
extra years.
® “The government has not yet shown the arguments
of the opposition to be fallacious,” writes Cruz.
On the other hand, Cruz characterizes the
opposition (anti) as being “very vocal airing its
arguments not only in newspapers, on radio, and on
television, but even in the parliament of the streets.”
“As of this writing,” Cruz writes, “I have not
heard the opposition rebut the arguments of the
government. In fact, as far as I can see, they have
refused to even listen to the government.”
 Since this is a public debate, Cruz contends
that “we have to move from constructive speeches to
rebuttal”.
I think we really don’t have a compelling need
to listen to rebuttals. What we need are objective,
actual (empirical) cost-benefit and pedagogical studies
to support or debunk the claims of either side. A
promising start would be to read Length of School
Cycle and the “Quality” of Education.
The disadvantages of the K-12 program are
the lack of classrooms and the bloating of the
curriculum - you simply stretched the 10 years of the
current curriculum to 12 years of curriculum - there is
no improvement in content - and lack of teachers.
There are no advantages. An extra 2 years
deprives a family of income in a society where the
issue of poverty has not been addressed.
If I may add, there is no disadvantage today.
Most of those who finish college will find that they need
massive corporate training to keep up with the
demands of professional life. In technical fields, you
might be slow but you will learn as you go along. One
cannot be thoroughly prepared in 10 or 12 years of
education.
The goal of education in the Philippines must
be defined. Does the Philippines want to become like
the United States as a technology center? Unless
there is something compelling it may take another
generation to surpass the United States. Learning in
the United States has one simple principle: access to
many fields of interests through a multitude of media,
and experts available to help kids in high school.
These are the better issues to address now. Without a
significant transformation of the support needed for
kids to attain excellence, K-12 is just a waste of time.
We do realize that there are many college
graduates who are launched quite early in the
employment game and they are often without jobs. But
this all the more argues for the strategy that the
employment problem must be resolved. K-12
graduates will only face the same problem.
The ideal way of proceeding is to have a
collaborative effort among the three education
agencies (CHED, DepEd, and TESDA) along with the
other stakeholders
such as the
academe and
industry. It is
indispensable that
the basic
education
curriculum be a
seamless and
coordinated whole
taking into account the different terminal goals of a
graduate—work, entrepreneurship, and higher
education. At the locus of the enhanced curriculum is a
special leaning towards liberal education that fosters
analytical and critical decision-making, formation of
sound judgment, and an informed citizenship. DepEd
has created a steering committee to undertake the
complicated mandate of putting in the details in the K-
12 framework it has initially established. For months,
the two other agencies— TESDA and CHED—were
not involved in the formulation of a curriculum until
recently. The Technical Working Group, comprised of
representatives from the three different agencies, met
but since the first meetings have not yet met again
because of logistics-related concerns and an
unquestionable problem on coordination. This poses
an insurmountable problem in the eventual
implementation of the policy considering that what the
K-12 envisions is a well-coordinated, well-thought out,
seamless and integrated basic education curriculum
that equips the graduate for work, technical education,
or higher education. If TESDA and CHED would be left
out in the planning and curriculum formulation, there is
a great likelihood that the curriculum will not feed in
seamlessly to either technical education or higher
education. Dr.Isagani Cruz, an education expert, noted
that changing the curriculum is a daunting task. He
enunciated that “it is not just a matter of adding a
subject here and removing a subject there” (Cruz,
2010) or introducing a new strategy but it involves a
more holistic approach that takes into consideration a
lot of factors such as the duration, the content, and the
competencies expected, among others. To date, there
has been no proclamation yet of any finalized K-12
basic education curriculum. This missing element will
create a spill over problem with the target
implementation for next year. The curriculum still has
to be
subjected to serious evaluation and pilot testing in
order to test its effectiveness and viability. The target
date of initial implementation for next year will not be
plausible. There appears to be a structural failure in
the three agencies 76 K-12 Education Reform which
impedes the advancing of curriculum design. Unless
this problem on coordination is addressed, at most,
only DepEd will have the full hand in the formulation.
SENIOR HIGH (GRADES 11-12)
Senior High School is two years of specialized upper
secondary education; students may choose a
specialization based on aptitude, interests, and school
capacity. The choice of career track will define the
content of the subjects a student will take in Grades 11
and 12. Each student in Senior High School can
choose among three tracks: Academic; Technical-
Vocational-Livelihood; and Sports and Arts. The
Academic track includes three strands: Business,
Accountancy, Management (BAM); Humanities,
Education, Social Sciences (HESS); and Science,
Technology, Engineering, Mathematics (STEM).
CORE CURRICULUM SUBJECTS
There are seven Learning Areas under the Core
Curriculum: Languages, Literature, Communication,
Mathematics, Philosophy, Natural Sciences, and
Social Sciences.
 Oral communication
 Reading and writing
 Komunikasyon at pananaliksik sa wika at
kulturang Filipino
 21st century literature from the Philippines and
the world
 Contemporary Philippine arts from the regions
 Media and information literacy
 General mathematics
 Statistics and probability
 Earth and life science
 Physical science
 Introduction to philosophy of the human
person/Pambungad sa pilosopiya ng tao
 Physical education and health
 Personal development/pansariling kaunlaran
 Earth science (instead of Earth and life
science for those in the STEM strand)
 Disaster readiness and risk reduction (taken
instead of Physical science for those in the
STEM strand)
APPLIED TRACK SUBJECTS
 English for academic and professional
purposes
 Practical research 1
 Practical research 2
 Filipino sa piling larangan
o Akademik
o Isports
o Sining
o Tech-voc
 Empowerment technologies (for the strand)
 Entrepreneurship
 Inquiries, investigatories, and immersion
SPECIALIZED SUBJECTS
 Accountancy, business, and and management
strand
 Humanities and social sciences strand
 Science, technology, engineering, and
mathematics strand
 General academic strand