Juggle Jungle

The K-12 curriculum has long been questioned for its results in producing job ready high school
graduates. And lo and behold, Senior Deputy Speaker Gloria Macapagal Arroyo proposes a new
curriculum promising to bear better fruits compared to its predecessor. However, is this change truly
what we need today?

Aiming to improve mathematical, scientific and linguistic competence, that’s why the K-12 curriculum
was applied. As well as preparing them for labour by exposing them to workplaces. Now that it has
‘failed’ in providing satisfactory results, Arroyo wants to replace it with the K+10+2 curriculum - a
curriculum making Grade 11 and Grade 12 only to those who wants pursue higher education.

Our education system has gone through enough hectic changes and yet no one seems to understand
that the problem lies within the quality of education the students receive and the neglect on improving
the current curriculum.

It’s overlooked that while the new curriculum aims to improve the employment of high school
graduates, pursuing higher education without competing the needed 2 years will be tricky for those that
had late opportunities.

The lack of employment of K-12 graduates is not because of the curriculum but because they do not
have the skills required by the industries that are hiring. Ideally, we should polish the program. Changing
the curriculum that’s supposed to cultivate the students for both labor and higher education is
nonsensical.

While it’s claimed that the additional 2 years is a burden for parents and learners (thus making it
discretional in the K+10+2 curriculum) rushing and sending them straight to work without actual
preparation will not land them a decent job or worse, they will be left unemployed.

The K-12 curriculum may not be producing the desired results but that’s more the reason to focus on
improving it. Instead of changing it and and making room for more problems, we need to address and fix
the obstacles it currently has. If we continue to juggle the curriculums, we’d just be creating “cavemen”
in a wild jungle.