Prof ed 6

Curriculum designers need to enhance the recommended curriculum and propose curricular innovations
to respond to the changing landscape in education regionally and globally. Are you aware of some
curricular reforms in the Philippines and other countries?

Republic Act 10533, otherwise known as the Enhanced Basic Education Act of 2013, is the latest
educational reform in Philippine Education signed into law by President Benigno Aquino III last May 15,
2013. It is an act enhancing the Philippine Basic Education system by strengthening its curriculum and
increasing the number of years for basic education appropriating funds therefore and for other
purposes.

The Enhanced Basic Education Act of 2013 popularly known as K to 12 includes one (1) year of
kindergarten education, six (6) years of elementary education, and six (6) years of secondary education.

This six-year secondary education includes four (4) years of junior high school and two (2) years of senior
high school. With K to 12, the existing 10 years of basic education is increased to 12 years with
Kindergarten education as a prerequisite to entry in Grade 1.

Why K to 12?

K to 12 makes the Philippine education system at par with the international standard of 12-year basic
education thereby contributing to a better educated society capable of pursuing productive
employment, entrepreneurship, or higher education studies. After going through kindergarten,
elementary, junior high and a specialized senior high school program, every K to 12 graduate is ready to
go into different paths - higher education, middle level skills development, employment, or
entrepreneurship. The K to 12 graduates are also expected to be equipped with 21» century skills like
information, media and technology skills, learning and innovation skills, effective communication skills,
and life and career skills.

When K to 12 was launched in 2012, many Filipinos were apprehensive because of the addition of two
(2) more years in secondary schooling. Some said, the additional two years are added burden for the
average Filipino family. Others said, the K to 12 program is doomed to fail since it does not address the
basic problems in education like lack of classrooms, chairs, books, teachers, quality teaching and many
more.

Amidst criticisms, the Department of Education pushed for the K to 12 implementation. What could be
the reasons?

Let's consider these existing realities in Philippine education that became the bases of the K to 12
implementation:

1. Mastery of basic competencies is insufficient due to congested curriculum

Thé table below presents the national achievement test resul of 4th year students in Mathematics and
Science. In 2005-2005 Mathematics results, only 15% of the students acquired mastery of the
Mathematics competencies while majority (59.09%) of the high school students belonged to the low
mastery level. The achievement results in Science were even more discouraging since only 3% of the 4th
year high school students in 2005-2006 mastered the Science processes and skills. Majority belonged to
the low mastery category and a few were in the near mastery level.

In international examinations, the Philippines performed poorly as revealed in 2003 TIMSS (Trends in
International Mathematics and Science) scores. In Grade IV Science and Math, the Philippines ranked 23
out of 25 participating countries. In High School II Science, the Philippines ranked 43 out of 46 and in
Math ranked 34 out of 38. Even with the science high schools participating in the Advanced Mathematics
category in 2008 TIMMS, the country's ranking did not improve. In fact, it ranked the lowest (10) among
ten participating countries.

One of the factors that contribute to the low performance in achievement tests is the congested basic
education curriculum. What other countries teach in twelve (12) years the Philippines teach only in ten
(10) years. The ten (10) years would not be enough to master the competencies. Adding two years would
make possible the decongestion of the curriculum for comprehensive acquisition of basic competencies
and the 21» century skills.

2. The Philippines is the only remaining country in Asia with a 10

- year basic education program.

The Philippines is the only country in Asia that has a ten-year basic education program. The short
duration of the basic education program also puts millions of overseas Filipino workers, especially the
professionals, and those who intend to study abroad at a disadvantage. Graduates of Philippine schools
are not automatically recognized as professionals outside the country due to the lack of two years in
basic education. Bologna Accord imposes twelve

12) years of education for university admission and practice of

Pere (12) years baste educaton as an entry to recogntion of

engineering professionals.

With K to 12, Filipino professionals would have the same competitive edge with professionals in other
countries having gone through 12 years of basic education.

By the way, the recommendation to improve and to lengthen the short basic education in the Philippines
has been given since

1925. As one of the most well studied reforms, recommendations of either adding or restoring 7 grade
or adding an extra year to basic education have been put forward. (See Table 5):

One frequently asked questions raised during the advocacy period for the K to 12 curriculum was this:
“Filipino students can do in ten (10) years what students in foreign countries do in twelve (12) years . A
number of our Filipino graduates who went through ten years of basic education excel in studies as well
as in their place of work abroad, so why add two years more?"

This may be true. But for as long as the international standard is twelve years of basic education that will
remain to be the standard and will apply to all including brilliant and exceptional Filipino students and
graduates.

In fact, there are cases where our Filipino scholars with Master's degrees who have to enroll in additional
Master's subjects before being allowed to pursue their doctorate degrees applied for. Why the additional
Master's subjects? The reason given is the short, ten-year basic education in the Philippines. In other
words, the Philippines has no choice but to comply with the twelve-year basic education. In the first
place, this has been a consistent recommendation of past surveys done on the Philippine educational
system.

Employability of Filipino high school graduates

The K to 12 Curriculum prepares the students for the world of work, middie level skills development,
entrepreneurship and college education. As early as Grade 7 and Grade 8, the student is made to explore
at least 8 subjects in the four (4) areas of Technology and Livelihood Education (TLE) namely: Home
Economics, ICT, Industrial Arts and Agriculture and Fishery Arts. In Grade 10 and Grade 12, the student is
supposed to have obtained a National Certificate (NC) Level 1 and NC Level II from TESDA. NCI and NC II
make a Grade 12 graduate employable..

The short duration of basic education in the Philippines resulted to 15 year old graduátes who are not
legally employable. With the implementation of the K to 12, the graduates of senior high is 18 years old
who is legally employable.
The K to 12 Curriculum

Section 5 of the Enhanced Basic Education Act of 2013, stipulates the following curricular standards
which the curriculum developers achered to in crafting the K to 12 curriculum:

(a) The curriculum shall be learner-centered, inclusive and developmentally appropriate;

(b)

The curriculum shall be relevant, responsive and research-based;

* The curriculum shall be culture-sensitive;

* The curriculum shall be contextualized and global;

* The curriculum shall use pedagogical approaches that are constructivist, inquiry-based, reflective,
collaborative and integrative;

(f)

The curriculum shall adhere to the principles and framework of Mother Tongue-Based Multilingual
Education (MTB-MLE) which starts from where the learners are and from what they already knew
proceeding from the known to the unknown; instructional materials and capable teachers to implement
the MTB-MLE curriculum shall be available;

* The curriculum shall use the spiral progression approach to ensure mastery of knowledge and skills
after each level; and

* The curriculum shall be flexible enough to enable and allow schools to localize, indigenize and
enhance the same based on their respective educational and social contexts. The production and
development of locally produced teaching materials shall be encouraged and approval of these materials
shall devolve to the regional and division education units.

ementation v and share

Core Curriculum

Below are the learning areas comprising the core curriculum. The description is based on DepEd Memo
13 s 2013.

The Senior High School Curriculum

There are four tracks in Senior High School. These are Academic track, Tech Voc track, Sports and Arts
and Design Track. The academic track has four strands namely 1) Science, Technology, Engineering and
Math (STEM) 2) Humanities and Social Sciences (HUMSS), 3) Accounting, Business and Management
(ABM) and 4) General Academic Strand (GAS). This means that at Grade 11, a student chooses which
track to pursue and if he/she chooses the academic he/She must also choose which strand. If a student
intends to go to college after Grade 12, then he/she must take the academic track. The college program
which he/she wants to enroll in determines which strand to take - STEM, HUMSS or ABM. If a Senior High
School student wants to pursue Tech Voc courses in Technical Education Skills Development Authority
(TESDA), he/she takes the Tech Voc track. He/She who is interested in Arts and Design will pursue the
Arts and Design track. The Sports track will be for any sports. minded Senior High School student.

The Senior High School Curriculum has a total of thirty-one subjects. The thirty-one subjects are grouped
into fifteen (15) core subjects,

seven (7) contextualized/applied subjects and nine (9)

specialization subjects.

In recent years, there has been an increasing attention on outcomes based education for several
reasons. These include return of investments and accountability which are driven by political, economic
and educational reasons.

Definition of Outcomes-Based Education (OBE)

Among the many advocates of OBE in the early years was W. Spady (1994) He defined OBE as clearly
focusing and organizing everything in the educational system around the essential and organizing
students to do suressully at the end of their leaming experience the Starts with a clear picture of what is
important for students porences to do, then organizing the curriculum, instruction and assessment to
make sue that learning happens. This definition dearly points to the desired results of education which
are the leaming outcomes. This are made up of knowledge, understanding, skills and attitudes that
students should acquire to make them reach their full potential and lead fulfilling lives as individuals in
the community and at work.

To define and clarify further, answers to the following questions should be addressed by the teachers.

1. What do we want these students to learn?

2. Why do we want students to learn these things?

3. How can we best help students to learn these things?

4. How will you know when the students have learned?

Spady premised that in Outcomes-Based Education;

* all students can learn and succeed, but not at the same time or in the same way;
必
successful learning promotes even more successful learning and

schools and teachers control the conditions that will determine if the students are successful in school
learning.

Four Essential Principles in OBE

In order to comply with the three premises, four essential principles should be followed in either
planning instruction, teaching and assessing

learning.

Principle 1: Clarity of Focus

A clear focus on what teachers want students to learn is the primary principle in OBE. Teachers should
bear in mind, that the outcome of teaching is learning. To achieve this, teachers and students should
have a clear picture in mind of what knowledge, skills, values must be achieved at end of the teaching-
learning process. This is like looking straight ahead so that the target will be reached.

Principle 2: Designing Backwards

This principle is related to the first. At the beginning of a curriculum design, the learning outcome has to
be clearly defined. What to achieve at the end of formal schooling is