DAVAO DEL NORTE STATE COLLEGE
DAVAO DEL NORTE STATE COLLEGE
Abolish or Revise? Perspectives on the K–12
Program's Implementation in the Philippines.
Carlo Calumba
Student, Davao del Norte State College
Let us begin this column by answering this
question, what is K-to-12 program in the Philippines?
According to the Department of Education states that, The
K to 12 Program covers Kindergarten and 12 years of basic
education (six years of primary education, four years of
Junior High School, and two years of Senior High School
[SHS]) to provide sufficient time for mastery of concepts
and skills, develop lifelong learners, and prepare
graduates for tertiary education, middle-level skills
development, employment, and entrepreneurship. This
program of the government has six salient features, first is
the strengthening of early childhood education, second is
making the curriculum relevant to learners, third is
ensuring integrated and seamless learning, fourth is
building proficiency through language, fifth is gearing up
for the future and last is nurturing the holistically
developed Filipino.
Now, there’s a news circulating in the internet and
media outlets that, two days after Vice President and
Education Secretary Sara Duterte gave the Basic Education
Report (BER) 2023 presentation on Jan. 30, a YouTube
video spread erroneously stated that she and President
Ferdinand "Bongbong" Marcos has plans for the K–12
education system's abolition. On the other hand, these
speculations spread the online media outlets is false.
During the presentation of the BER 2023, Duterte stated
that the DepEd will revise the K–12 program, not to
abolish it. "We will revise the K–12 Curriculum to make
them more responsive to our aspiration as a nation, to
develop lifelong learners who are imbued with 21st-
century skills, discipline, and patriotism," she stated.
Address: Davao del Norte State College
Tadeco Road, New Visayas
Panabo City, Davao del Norte, 8105
0
Institute of Teacher Education
In this column, let us answer these questions. Why
to abolish the K-to-12 curriculum? And, if there’s a revision
of K-to-12 curriculum, what are the ways on improving the
system to give beneficial to the Filipinos and not giving
burden to it?
First, why to abolish the K-to-12 curriculum? In my
opinion, as a Filipino student, an educator, a son who’s
having a parent of minimum wage earner, and a
concerned citizen. For me, K-12 will just make Filipino
students and their parents more burdened. The high
expense of education and yearly increases in tuition and
other school fees, in my opinion, will only be made to fall
mostly on students and their parents under K-12. K-12 will
continue to privatize and market education. Parents have
always been seen as the main victims of the K–12
educational system. They maintain that this scheme would
not benefit impoverished Filipino families and will instead
increase their financial burden given the additional two
years of high school. Also, K–12 education, in my opinion,
is not the answer to insufficient instruction. Instead, this
approach will make the nation's education issue worse. In-
country research on the "Length of School Cycle and the
Quality of Education" by specialists in the field of
education came to the conclusion that there is "no basis"
for the idea that stretching the educational cycle will
increase educational quality. The significant absence of
classrooms, instructors, textbooks, desks, sanitation, and
water facilities, and other necessities could not even be
addressed by the government's budgeted allocation for
education without K–12. Promoting K-12 as a fix for the
low quality of education is essentially a pathetic attempt
to hide a more obvious fact: that the government's severe
Website: www.dnsc.edu.ph
Email: president@dnsc.edu.ph
Facebook Page: www.facebook.com/davnorstatecollege
 DAVAO DEL NORTE STATE COLLEGE
DAVAO DEL NORTE STATE COLLEGE 0
Institute of Teacher Education

under allocation of funding and foreign-dictated policies

are to blame for the low quality of education.
In conclusion, K-12 will not benefit Filipino
children, parents, teachers, or employees in the short or
long term. We need a nationalist and pro-people
educational system that supports the aspirations of the
Filipino people for full human and national development.
Contrary question, if there’s a revision of K-to-12
curriculum, what are the ways on improving the system to
give beneficial to the Filipinos and not giving burden to it?
As an educator, in my opinion, I would suggest that the
Department of Education would reiterate the necessity for
the K–12 program in order for it to fulfill its pledge to give
Filipinos access to a high-quality education and jobs. Also,
we need to invest in human capital, it means we would
make an ultimate investment in education because this is
the hope and betterment of our Filipino students in our
country. In Addition, consulting experts, adjusting to
regional and global best practices, and making judgments
based on facts are all ways to ensure that students are
given the right skills rather than merely familiarity.
Furthermore, I also suggest that there’s a proper planning,
developing, and implementation of the K-to-12 program.
Also, it needs to re-evaluate to pause a little bit and change
or improve the system before we fully implement the
program.
In my conclusion, the K–12 programs were
introduced in the Philippines, teachers, parents, and
students who were heavily involved in this change
expressed a variety of opinions and suppositions about
whether or not this would help the nation improve its
educational system to meet the demands of the
international market better. The K–12 programs included
something that should be at the top of the government's
list of priorities since it was seen to be the answer to every
issue the nation is now experiencing. To determine the
issues that needed to be resolved in order to adopt this
new curriculum that provided multiple viewpoints among
instructors, parents, and students, many studies had been
undertaken.

Address: Davao del Norte State College Website: www.dnsc.edu.ph

Tadeco Road, New Visayas Email: president@dnsc.edu.ph
Panabo City, Davao del Norte, 8105 Facebook Page: www.facebook.com/davnorstatecollege